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WITCHING HILL 

















I drove Delavoye before me through the window he had 
just opened 



' WITCHING HIM. 


BY 

E. W. HORNUNG 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

F. C. YOHN j 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
NEW YORK ::::::::::::: 1913 




Copyright, 1913, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Published February, 1913 


v 



©CI.A33 25 4 0 C V 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Unhallowed Ground ..... 3 

The House with Red Blinds ... 39 

A Vicious Circle 78 

The Local Colour ...... 109 

The Angel of Life 144 

Under Arms 174 

The Locked Room ..... 207 

The Temple of Bacchus .... 245 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


I drove Delavoye before me through the window he 

had just opened Frontispiece 

Facing Page 

He was less excited than I expected on hearing my 

experience 18 

It was the madness of utter ecstasy .... 34 

“In that case you won’t start a scandal” ... 48 

“The man you want has been here all the time” . 68 

“Good Lord!” cried Delavoye. “That’s the very ring 

we saw last night!” 94 

“It’s all I’m fit for, death!” groaned Guy Berridge, 
trying to tug the fierce moustache out of his mild 
face 98 

With one hand he caught the offending urchin, and in 
the other I was horrified to see his stick, a heavy 
blackthorn, held in murderous poise . . . 106 

I even saw him with his thin arms locked round the 

neck of the young nurse 166 

“I’ve saved your boy for you. Do you mind letting 

me go?” 172 

Even as it was I went down on all-fours . . .196 

That same second my arms were round him . . 204 




























s 




















# 




• k 






























































WITCHING HILL 



Witching Hill 


Unhallowed Ground 
HE Witching Hill Estate Office was as new 



1 as the Queen Anne houses it had to let, and 
about as worthy of its name. It was just a wooden 
box with a veneer of roughcast and a corrugated 
iron lid. Inside there was a vast of varnish on 
three of the walls; but the one opposite my counter 
consisted of plate-glass worth the rest of the struc- 
ture put together. It afforded a fine prospect of 
Witching Hill Road, from the level crossing by the 
station to the second lamp-post round the curve. 

Framed and glazed in the great window, this 
was not a picture calculated to inspire a very 
young man; and yet there was little to distract 
a brooding eye from its raw grass-plots and crude 
red bricks and tiles; for one’s chief duties were 
making out orders to view the still empty houses, 
hearing the complaints of established tenants, and 


3 


Witching Hill 

keeping such an eye on painters and paper-hangers 
as was compatible with “ being on the spot if any- 
body called.” An elderly or a delicate man would 
have found it nice light work; but for a hulking 
youth fresh from the breeziest school in Great Brit- 
ain, where they live in flannels and only work when 
it is wet or dark, the post seemed death in life. 
My one consolation was to watch the tenants hur- 
rying to the same train every morning, in the same 
silk hat and blacks, and crawling home with the 
same evening paper every night. I, at any rate, 
enjoyed comparatively pure air all day. I had 
not married and settled down in a pretentious 
jerry-building where nothing interesting could pos- 
sibly happen, and nothing worth doing be ever 
done. For that was one’s first feeling about the 
Witching Hill Estate; it was a place for crabbed 
age and drab respectability, and a black coat every 
day of the week. Then young Uvo Delavoye 
dropped into the office from another hemisphere, 
in the white ducks and helmet of the tropics. And 
life began again. 

“Are you the new clerk to the Estate?” he asked 
if he might ask, and I prepared myself for the usual 
grievance. I said I was, and he gave me his name 
in exchange for mine, with his number in Mulcaster 

4 


Unhallowed Ground 

Park, which was all but a continuation of Witch- 
ing Hill Road. “There’s an absolute hole in our 
lawn,” he complained — “and I’d just marked out 
a court. I do wish you could come and have a 
look at it.” 

There was room for a full-size lawn-tennis court 
behind every house on the Estate. That was one 
of our advertised attractions. But it was not our 
business to keep the courts in order, and I rather 
itched to say so. 

“It’s early days,” I ventured to suggest; “there’s 
sure to be holes at first, and I’m afraid there’ll be 
nothing for it but just to fill them in.” 

“Fill them in!” cried the other young man, get- 
ting quite excited. “You don’t know what a hole 
this is; it would take a ton of earth to fill it in.” 

“You’re not serious, Mr. Delavoye.” 

“Well, it would take a couple of barrow-loads. 
It’s a regular depression in the ground, and the 
funny thing is that it’s come almost while my 
back was turned. I finished marking out the court 
last night, and this morning there’s this huge hole 
bang in the middle of one of my side-lines! If 
you filled it full of water it would take you over 
the ankles.” 

“Is the grass not broken at the edges?” 

5 


Witching Hill 

“Not a bit of it; the whole thing might have 
been done for years.” 

“And what like is this hole in shape ?” 

Delavoye met me eye to eye. “Well, I can 
only say I’ve seen the same sort of thing in a 
village churchyard, and nowhere else,” he said. 
“It’s like a churchyard starting to yawn!” he 
suddenly added, and looked in better humour for 
the phrase. 

I pulled out my watch. “I’ll come at one, when 
I knock off in any case, if you can wait till then.” 

“Rather!” he cried quite heartily; “and I’ll 
wait here if you don’t mind, Mr. Gillon. I’ve 
just seen my mother and sister off to town, so it 
fits in rather well. I don’t want them to know 
if it’s anything beastly. May we smoke in here? 
Then have one of mine.” 

And he perched himself on my counter, lighting 
the whole place up with his white suit and ani- 
mated air; for he was a very pleasant fellow from 
the moment he appeared to find me one. Not 
much my senior, he had none of my rude health 
and strength, but was drawn and yellowed by 
some tropical trouble (as I rightly guessed) which 
had left but little of his outer youth beyond a 
vivid eye and tongue. Yet I would fain have 
6 


Unhallowed Ground 

added these to my own animal advantages. It 
is difficult to recapture a first impression; but I 
think I felt, from the beginning, that those twin- 
kling, sunken eyes looked on me and all things in 
a light of their own. 

“Not an interesting place?” cried young Dela- 
voye, in astonishment at a chance remark of mine. 
“Why, it’s one of the most interesting in England! 
None of these fine old crusted country houses are 
half so fascinating to me as the ones quite near 
London. Think of the varied life they’ve seen, 
the bucks and bloods galore, the powder and 
patches, the orgies begun in town and finished 
out here, the highwaymen waiting for ’em on 
Turnham Green! Of course you know about the 
heinous Lord Mulcaster who owned this place in 
the high old days? He committed every crime in 
the Newgate Calendar, and now I’m just wonder- 
ing whether you and I aren’t by way of bringing 
a fresh one home to him.” 

I remember feeling sorry he should talk like 
that, though it argued a type of mind that rather 
reconciled me to my own. I was never one to 
jump to gimcrack conclusions, and I said as much 
with perhaps more candour than the occasion re- 
quired. The statement was taken in such good 
7 


Witching Hill 

part, however, that I could not but own I had 
never even heard the name of Mulcaster until the 
last few days, whereas Delavoye seemed to know 
all about the family. Thereupon he told me he 
was really connected with them, though not at all 
closely with the present peer. It had nothing to 
do with his living on an estate which had changed 
hands before it was broken up. But I modified 
my remark about the ancestral acres — and made 
a worse. 

“I wasn’t thinking of the place,” I explained, 
“as it used to be before half of it was built over. 
I was only thinking of that half and its inhabi- 
tants — I mean — that is — the people who go up 
and down in top-hats and frock-coats!” 

And I was left clinging with both eyes to my 
companion’s cool attire. 

“But that’s my very point,” he laughed and 
said. “These city fellows are the absolute salt 
of historic earth like this; they throw one back 
into the good old days by sheer force of con- 
trast. I never see them in their office kit with- 
out thinking of that old rascal in his wig and 
ruffles, carrying a rapier instead of an umbrella; 
he’d have fallen on it like Brutus if he could 
have seen his grounds plastered with cheap red 
8 


Unhallowed Ground 

bricks and mortar, and crawling with Stock Ex- 
change ants!” 

“You’ve got an imagination,” said I, chuckling. 
I nearly told him he had the gift of the gab as 
well. 

“You must have something,” he returned a lit- 
tle grimly, “when you’re stuck on the shelf at my 
age. Besides, it isn’t all imagination, and you 
needn’t go back a hundred years for your ro- 
mance. There’s any amount kicking about this 
Estate at the present moment; it’s in the soil. 
These business blokes are not all the dull dogs 
they look. There’s a man up our road — but he 
can wait. The first mystery to solve is the one 
that’s crying from our back garden.” 

I liked his way of putting things. It made one 
forget his yellow face, and the broken career that 
his looks and hints suggested, or it made one re- 
member them and think the more of him. But 
the things themselves were interesting, and Witch- 
ing Hill had more possibilities when we sallied 
forth together at one o’clock. 

It was the height of such a June as the old 
century could produce up to the last. The bald 
red houses, too young to show a shoot of creeper, 
or a mellow tone from door-step to chimney-pot, 
9 


Witching Hill 

glowed like clowns’ pokers in the ruthless sun. 
The shade of some stately elms, on a bit of old 
road between the two new ones of the Estate, ap- 
pealed sharply to my awakened sense of contrast. 
It was all familiar ground to me, of course, but I 
had been over it hitherto with my eyes on noth- 
ing else and my heart in the Lowlands. Now I 
found myself wondering what the elms had seen 
in their day, and what might not be going on in 
the red houses even now. 

“I hope you know the proper name of our road,” 
said Delavoye as we turned into it. “It’s Mul- 
caster Park, as you see, and not Mulcaster Park 
Road, as it was when we came here in the spring. 
Our neighbours have risen in a body against the 
superfluous monosyllable, and it’s been painted 
out for ever.” 

In spite of that precaution Mulcaster Park was 
still suspiciously like a road. It was very long 
and straight, and the desired illusion had not been 
promoted by the great names emblazoned on some 
of the little wooden gates. Thus there was Long- 
leat, which had just been let for £70 on a three- 
year tenancy, and Chatsworth with a C. P. card 
in the drawing-room window. Plain No. 7, the 
Delavoyes’ house, was near the far end on the 
10 


Unhallowed Ground 

left-hand side, which had the advantage of a strip 
of unspoilt woodland close behind the back gar- 
dens; and just through the wood was Witching 
Hill House, scene of immemorial excesses, accord- 
ing to this descendant of the soil. 

“But now it’s in very different hands,” he 
remarked as we reached our destination. “Sir 
Christopher Stainsby is apparently all that my 
ignoble kinsman was not. They say he’s no end 
of a saint. In winter we see his holy fane from 
our back windows.” 

It was not visible through the giant hedge of 
horse-chestnuts now heavily overhanging the split 
fence at the bottom of the garden. I had come 
out through the dining-room with a fresh sense 
of interest in these Delavoyes. Their furniture 
was at once too massive and too good for the 
house. It stood for some old home of very dif- 
ferent type. Large oil-paintings and marble stat- 
uettes had not been acquired to receive the light 
of day through windows whose upper sashes were 
filled with cheap stained glass. A tigerskin with 
a man-eating head, over which I tripped, had not 
always been in the way before a cast-iron mantel- 
piece. I felt sorry, for the moment, that Mrs. 
and Miss Delavoye were not at home; but I was 
ii 


Witching Hill 

not so sorry when I beheld the hole in the lawn 
behind the house. 

It had the ugly shape and appearance which 
had reminded young Delavoye himself of a church- 
yard. I was bound to admit its likeness to some 
sunken grave, and the white line bisecting it was 
not the only evidence that the subsidence was of 
recent occurrence; the grass was newly mown and 
as short inside the hole as it was all over. No 
machine could have made such a job of such a 
surface, said the son of the house, with a light in 
his eyes, but a drop in his voice, which made me 
wonder whether he desired or feared the worst. 

“What do you want us to do, Mr. Delavoye ?” 
I inquired in my official capacity. 

“I want it dug up, if I can have it done now, 
while my mother’s out of the way.” 

That was all very well, but I had only limited 
powers. My instructions were to attend promptly 
to the petty wants of tenants, but to refer any 
matter of importance to our Mr. Muskett, who 
lived on the Estate but spent his days at the 
London office. This appeared to me that kind 
of matter, and little as I might like my place I 
could ill afford to risk it by doing the wrong 
thing. I put all this as well as I could to my 
12 


Unhallowed Ground 

new friend, but not without chafing his impetuous 
spirit. 

“Then I’ll do the thing myself!” said he, and 
fetched from the yard some garden implements 
which struck me as further relics of more spacious 
days. In his absence I had come to the same 
conclusion about a couple of high-backed Dutch 
garden chairs and an umbrella tent; and the final 
bond of fallen fortunes made me all the sorrier to 
have put him out. He was not strong; no won- 
der he was irritable. He threw himself into his 
task with a kind of feeble fury; it was more than 
I could stand by and watch. He had not turned 
many sods when he paused to wipe his forehead, 
and I seized the spade. 

“If one of us is going to do this job,” I cried, 
“it sha’n’t be the one who’s unfit for it. You can 
take the responsibility, if you like, but that’s all 
you do between now and two o’clock!” 

I should date our actual friendship from that 
moment. There was some boyish bluster on his 
part, and on mine a dour display which he even- 
tually countenanced on my promising to stay to 
lunch. Already the sweat was teeming off my 
face, but my ankles were buried in rich brown 
mould. A few days before there had been a 
13 


Witching Hill 

thunder-storm accompanied by tropical rain, which 
had left the earth so moist underneath that one’s 
muscles were not taxed as much as one’s skin. 
And I was really very glad of the exercise, after 
the physical stagnation of office life. 

Not that Delavoye left everything to me; he 
shifted the Dutch chairs and the umbrella tent 
so as to screen my operations alike from the back 
yard behind us and from the windows of the occu- 
pied house next door. Then he hovered over me, 
with protests and apologies, until the noble in- 
spiration took him to inquire if I liked beer. I 
stood upright in my pit, and my mouth must have 
watered as visibly as the rest of my countenance. 
It appeared he was not allowed to touch it him- 
self, but he would fetch some in a jug from the 
Mulcaster Arms, and blow the wives of the gen- 
tlemen who went to town! 

I could no more dissuade him from this share 
of the proceedings than he had been able to re- 
strain me from mine; perhaps I did not try very 
hard; but I did redouble my exertions when he 
was gone, burying my spade with the enthusiasm 
of a gold-digger working a rich claim, and yet de- 
positing each spadeful with some care under cover 
of the chairs. And I had hardly been a minute 
14 


Unhallowed Ground 

by myself when I struck indubitable wood at the 
depth of three or four feet. Decayed wood it was, 
too, which the first thrust of the spade crushed in; 
and at that I must say the perspiration cooled 
upon my skin. But I stood up and was a little 
comforted by the gay blue sky and the bottle- 
green horse-chestnuts, if I looked rather longer at 
the French window through which Delavoye had 
disappeared. 

His wild idea had seemed to me the unwhole- 
some fruit of a morbid imagination, but now I 
prepared to find it hateful fact. Down I went on 
my haunches, and groped with my hands in the 
mould, to learn the worst with least delay. The 
spade I had left sticking in the rotten wood, and 
now I ran reluctant fingers down its cold iron into 
the earth-warm splinters. They were at the ex- 
treme edge of the shaft that I was sinking, but I 
discovered more splinters at the same level on the 
opposite side. These were not of my making; 
neither were they part of any coffin, but rather 
of some buried floor or staging. My heart danced 
as I seized the spade again. I dug another foot 
quickly; that brought me to detached pieces of 
rotten wood of the same thickness as the jagged 
edges above; evidently a flooring of some kind 
15 


Witching Hill 

had fallen in — but fallen upon what? Once more 
the spade struck wood, but sound wood this time. 
The last foot of earth was soon taken out, and an 
oblong trap-door disclosed, with a rusty ring-bolt 
at one end. 

I tugged at the ring-bolt without stopping to 
think; but the trap-door would not budge. Then 
I got out of the hole for a pickaxe that Delavoye 
had produced with the spade, and with one point 
of the pick through the ring I was able to get a 
little leverage. It was more difficult to insert the 
spade where the old timbers had started, while 
still keeping them apart, but this once done I could 
ply both implements together. There was no key- 
hole to the trap, only the time-eaten ring and a 
pair of hinges like prison bars; it could but be 
bolted underneath; and yet how those old bolts 
and that wood of ages clung together! It was 
only by getting the pick into the gap made by 
the spade, and prizing with each in turn and both 
at once, that I eventually achieved my purpose. 
I heard the bolt tinkle on hard ground beneath, 
and next moment saw it lying at the bottom of a 
round bricked hole. 

All this must have occupied far fewer minutes 
than it has taken to describe; for Delavoye had 
16 


Unhallowed Ground 

not returned to peer with me into a well which 
could never have been meant for water. It had 
neither the width nor the depth of ordinary wells; 
an old ladder stood against one side, and on the 
other the high sun shone clean down into the 
mouth of a palpable tunnel. It opened in the di- 
rection of the horse-chestnuts, and I was in it next 
moment. The air was intolerably stale without 
being actually foul; a match burned well enough 
to reveal a horse-shoe passage down which a man 
of medium stature might have walked upright. It 
was bricked like the well, and spattered with some 
repulsive growth that gave me a clammy daub 
before I realised the dimensions. I had struck a 
second match on my trousers, and it had gone 
out as if by magic, when Delavoye hailed me in 
high excitement from the lawn above. 

He was less excited than I expected on hearing 
my experience; and he only joined me for a min- 
ute before luncheon, which he insisted on our still 
taking, to keep the servants in the dark. But it 
was a very brilliant eye that he kept upon the 
Dutch chairs through the open window, and he 
was full enough of plans and explanations. Of 
course we must explore the passage, but we would 
give the bad air a chance of getting out first. He 
17 


Witching Hill 

spoke of some Turkish summer-house, or pavilion, 
mentioned in certain annals of Witching Hill, that 
he had skimmed for his amusement in the local 
Free Library. There was no such structure to be 
seen from any point of vantage that he had dis- 
covered; possibly this was its site; and the floor 
which had fallen in might have been a false base- 
ment, purposely intended to conceal the trap-door, 
or else built over it by some unworthy successor 
of the great gay lord. 

“He was just the sort of old sportsman to have 
a way of his own out of the house, Gillon! He 
might have wanted it at any moment; he must 
have been ready for the worst most nights of his 
life; for I may tell you they would have hanged 
him in the end if he hadn’t been too quick for 
them with his own horse-pistol. You didn’t know 
he was as bad as that? It’s not a thing the fam- 
ily boasts about, and I don’t suppose your Estate 
people would hold it out as an attraction. But 
I’ve read a thing or two about the bright old boy, 
and I do believe we’ve struck the site of some of 
his brightest moments!” 

“I should like to have explored that tunnel.” 

“So you shall.” 

“But when?” 

18 



He was less excited than I expected on hearing my experience 








Unhallowed Ground 

We had gobbled our luncheon, and I had drained 
the jug that my unconventional host had carried 
all the way from the Mulcaster Arms; but al- 
ready I was late for a most unlucky appointment 
with prospective tenants, and it was only a last 
look that I could take at my not ignoble handi- 
work. It was really rather a good hole for a be- 
ginner, and a grave-digger could not have heaped 
his earth much more compactly. It came hard 
to leave the next stage of the adventure even to 
as nice a fellow as young Delavoye. 

“When?” he repeated with an air of surprise. 
“Why, to-night, of course; you don’t suppose I’m 
going to explore it without you, do you?” 

I had already promised not to mention the 
matter to my Mr. Muskett when he looked in at 
the office on his way from the station; but that 
was the only undertaking which had passed be- 
tween us. 

“I thought you said you didn’t want Mrs. Dela- 
voye to see the pit’s mouth?” 

It was his own expression, yet it made him 
smile, though it had not made me. 

“I certainly don’t mean either my mother or 
sister to see one end till we’ve seen the other,” 
said he. “They might have a word too many to 
19 


Witching Hill 

say about it. I must cover the place up some- 
how before they get back; but HI tell them you’re 
coming in this evening, and when they go aloft we 
shall very naturally come out here for a final pipe.” 

“ Armed with a lantern?” 

“No, a pocketful of candles. And don’t you 
dress, Gillon, because, I don’t, even when I’m not 
bound for the bowels of the globe.” 

I ran to my appointment after that; but the 
prospective tenants broke theirs, and kept me 
waiting for nothing all that fiery afternoon. I 
can shut my eyes and go through it all again, and 
see every inch of my sticky little prison near the 
station. In the heat its copious varnish devel- 
oped an adhesive quality as fatal to flies as bird- 
lime, and there they stuck in death to pay me out. 
It was not necessary to pin any notice to the 
walls; one merely laid them on the varnish; and 
that morning, when young Delavoye had leaned 
against it in his whites, he had to peel himself off 
like a plaster. That morning! It seemed days 
ago, not because I had met with any great ad- 
venture yet, but the whole atmosphere of the place 
was changed by the discovery of a kindred spirit. 
Not that we were naturally akin in temperament, 
tastes, or anything else but our common youth 
20 


Unhallowed Ground 

and the want in each of a companion approaching 
his own type. We saw things at a different angle, 
and when he smiled I often wondered why. We 
might have met in town or at college and never 
sought each other again; but separate adversities 
had driven us both into the same dull haven — 
one from the Egyptian Civil, which had nearly 
been the death of him; the other on a sanguine 
voyage (before the mast) from the best school in 
Scotland to Land Agency. We were bound to 
make the most of each other, and I for one looked 
forward to renewing our acquaintance even more 
than to the sequel of our interrupted adventure. 

But I was by no means anxious to meet my new 
friend’s womankind; never anything of a lady’s 
man, I was inclined rather to resent the existence 
of these good ladies, partly from something he had 
said about them with reference to our impending 
enterprise. Consequently it was rather late in the 
evening when I turned out of one of the nomi- 
nally empty houses, where I had gone to lodge with 
a still humbler servant of the Estate, and went 
down to No. 7 with some hope that its mistress 
at all events might already have retired. Almost 
to my horror I learned that they were all three in 
the back garden, whither I was again conducted 


21 


Witching Hill 

through the little dining-room with the massive 
furniture. 

Mrs. Delavoye was a fragile woman with a kind 
but nervous manner; the daughter put me more 
at my ease, but I could scarcely see either of them 
by the dim light from the French window outside 
which they sat. I was more eager, however, to 
see “the pit’s mouth,” and in the soft starlight of 
a velvet night I made out the two Dutch chairs 
lying face downward over the shaft. 

“It’s so tiresome of my brother,” said Miss 
Delavoye, following my glance with disconcerting 
celerity: “just when we want our garden chairs 
he’s varnished them, and there they lie unfit to 
use!” 

I never had any difficulty in looking stolid, but 
for the moment I avoided the impostor’s eyes. It 
was trying enough to hear his impudent defence. 

“You’ve been at me about them all the summer, 
Amy, and I felt we were in for a spell of real hot 
weather at last.” 

“I can’t think why you’ve put them out there, 
Uvo,” remarked his mother. “They won’t dry 
any better in the dew, my dear boy.” 

“They won’t make a hopeless mess of the grass, 
at all events!” he retorted. “But why varnish 
22 


Unhallowed Ground 

our dirty chairs in public? Mr. Gillon won’t be 
edified; he’d much rather listen to the nightingale, 
I’m sure.” 

Had they a nightingale? I had never heard 
one in my life. I was obliged to say something, 
and this happened to be the truth; it led to a 
little interchange about Scotland, in which the 
man Uvo assumed a Johnsonian pose, as though 
he had known me as long as I felt I had known 
him, and then prayed silence for the nightingale 
as if the suburban garden were a banqueting hall. 
It was a concert hall, at any rate, and never was 
sweeter solo than the invisible singer poured forth 
from the black and jagged wood between glim- 
mering lawn and starry sky. I see the picture 
now, with the seated ladies dimly silhouetted 
against the French windows, and our two cigar- 
ettes waxing and waning like revolving lights 
seen leagues away. I hear the deep magic of 
those heavenly notes, as I was to hear them more 
summers than one from that wild wood within 
a few yards of our raw red bricks and mortar. 
It may be as the prelude of what was to follow 
that I recall it all so clearly, down to the couplet 
that Uvo could not quite remember and his sister 
did: 


23 


Witching Hill 

“The voice I hear this passing night was heard 
In ancient days by emperor and clown.” 

“That’s what I meant!” he cried. “By em- 
peror, clown, and old man Mulcaster in his cups! 
Think of him carrying on in there to such a tune, 
and think of pious Christopher holding family 
prayers to it now!” 

And the bare thought dashed from my lips a 
magic potion compounded of milky lawn and 
ebony horse-chestnuts, of an amethyst sky twin- 
kling with precious stars, and the low voice of a 
girl trying not to drown the one in the wood; the 
spell was broken, and I was glad when at last we 
had the garden to ourselves. 

“There are two things I must tell you for your 
comfort,” said the incorrigible Uvo, as we lifted 
one Dutch chair from the hole it covered like a 
hatchway, but left the other pressed down over 
the heap of earth. “In the first place, both my 
mother and sister have front rooms, so they won’t 
hear or bother about us again. The other thing’s 
only that I’ve been back to the Free Library in 
what the simple inhabitants still insist on calling 
the Village, and had another look into those an- 
nals of old Witching Hill. I can find no men- 
tion whatever of any subterranean passage. I 
24 


Unhallowed Ground 

shouldn’t wonder if good Sir Chris had never 
heard of it in his life. In that case we shall rush 
in where neither man nor beast has trodden for 
a hundred and fifty years.” 

We lit our candles down the shaft, and then I 
drew the Dutch chair over the hole again on Del- 
avoye’s suggestion; he was certainly full of re- 
source, and I was only too glad to play the prac- 
tical man with my reach and strength. If he had 
been less impetuous and headstrong, we should 
have made a strong pair of adventurers. In the 
tunnel he would go first, for instance, much against 
my wish; but, as he put it, if the foul air knocked 
him down I could carry him out under one arm, 
whereas he would have to leave me to die in my 
tracks. So he chattered as we crept on and on, 
flinging monstrous shadows into the arch behind 
us, and lighting up every patch of filth ahead; 
for the long-drawn vault was bearded with stalac- 
tites of crusted slime; but no living creature fled 
before us; we alone breathed the impure air, en- 
couraged by our candles, which lit us far beyond 
the place where my match had been extinguished 
and deeper and deeper yet without a flicker. 

Then in the same second they both went out, 
at a point where the overhead excrescences made 
25 


Witching Hill 

it difficult to stand upright. And there we were, 
like motes in a tube of lamp-black; for it was a 
darkness as palpable as fog. But my leader had 
a reassuring explanation on the tip of his sanguine 
tongue. 

“It’s because we stooped down,” said he. 
“ Strike a match on the roof if it’s dry enough. 
There! What did I tell you? The dregs of the 
air settle down like other dregs. Hold on a bit! 
I believe we’re under the house, and that’s why 
the arch is dry.” 

We continued our advance with instinctive 
stealth, now blackening the roof with our candles 
as we went, and soon and sure enough the old 
tube ended in a wad of brick and timber. 

In the brickwork was a recessed square, shrouded 
in cobwebs which perished at a sweep of Dela- 
voye’s candle; a wooden shutter closed the aper- 
ture, and I had just a glimpse of an oval knob, 
green with verdigris, when my companion gave it 
a twist and the shutter sprang open at the base. 
I held it up while he crept through with his candle, 
and then I followed him with mine into the queer- 
est chamber I had ever seen. 

It was some fifteen feet square, with a rough 
parquet floor and panelled walls and ceiling. All 
2 6 


Unhallowed Ground 

the woodwork seemed to me old oak, and reflected 
our naked lights on every side in a way that be- 
spoke attention; and there was a tell-tale set of 
folding steps under an ominous square in the ceil- 
ing, but no visible break in the four walls, nor yet 
another piece of movable furniture. In one corner, 
however, stood a great stack of cigar boxes whose 
agreeable aroma was musk and frankincense after 
the penetrating humours of the tunnel. This 
much we had noted when we made our first start- 
ling discovery. The panel by which we had en- 
tered had shut again behind us; the noise it must 
have made had escaped us in our excitement; 
there was nothing to show which panel it had 
been — no semblance of a knob on this side — and 
soon we were not even agreed as to the wall. 

Uvo Delavoye had enough to say at most mo- 
ments, but now he was a man of action only, and 
I copied his proceedings without a word. Panel 
after panel he rapped and sounded like any doc- 
tor, even through his fingers to make less noise! 
I took the next wall, and it was I who first de- 
tected a hollow note. I whispered my suspicion; 
he joined me, and was convinced; so there we 
stood cheek by jowl, each with a guttering can- 
dle in one hand, while the other felt the panel 
27 


Witching Hill 

and pressed the knots. And a knot it was that 
yielded under my companion’s thumb. But the 
panel that opened inward was not our panel at 
all; instead of our earthy tunnel, we looked into 
a shallow cupboard, with a little old dirty bundle 
lying alone in the dust of ages. Delavoye picked 
it up gingerly, but at once I saw him weighing his 
handful in surprise, and with one accord we sat 
down to examine it, sticking our candles on the 
floor between us in their own grease. 

“Lace,” muttered Uvo, “and something in it.” 

The outer folds came to shreds in his fingers; a 
little deeper the lace grew firmer, and presently 
he was paying it out to me in fragile hanks. I 
believe it was a single flounce, though yards in 
length. Delavoye afterward looked up the sub- 
ject, characteristically, and declared it point de 
Venise; from what I can remember of its exquisite 
workmanship, in monogram, coronet, and imperial 
emblems, I can believe with him that the diamond 
buckle to which he came at last was less precious 
than its wrapping. But by that time we were not 
thinking of their value; we were screwing up our 
faces over a dark coagulation which caused the 
last yard or so to break off in bits. 

“Lace and blood and diamonds!” said Dela- 
28 


Unhallowed Ground 

vo ye, bending over the relics in grim absorption. 
“ Could the priceless old sinner have left us a more 
delightful legacy ?” 

“What are you going to do with them?” I 
asked, rather nervously at that. They had not 
been left to us. They ought surely to be deliv- 
ered to their rightful owner. 

“But who does own them?” asked Delavoye. 
“Is it the worthy plutocrat who’s bought the show 
and all that in it is, or is it my own venerable kith 
and kin ? They wouldn’t thank us for taking these 
rather dirty coals to Newcastle. They might re- 
fuse delivery, or this old boy might claim his min- 
ing rights, and where should we come in then? 
No, Gillon, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but as a 
twig of the old tree I mean to take the law into 
my own hands” — I held my breath — “and put 
these things back exactly where we found them. 
Then we’ll leave everything in plumb order, and 
finish up by filling in that hole in our lawn — if 
ever we get out of this one.” 

But small doubt on the point was implied in 
his buoyant tone; the way through the panel just 
broached argued a similar catch in the one we 
sought; meanwhile we closed up the other with 
much relief on my side and an honest groan from 
29 


Witching Hill 

Delavoye. It was sufficiently obvious that Sir 
Christopher Stainsby had discovered neither the 
secret subway nor the secret repository which we 
had penetrated by pure chance; on the other 
hand, he made use of the chamber leading to both 
as a cigar cellar, and had it kept in better order 
than such a purpose required. Sooner or later 
somebody would touch a spring, and one discov- 
ery would lead to another. So we consoled each 
other as we resumed our search, almost forgetting 
that we ourselves might be discovered first. 

It was in a providential pause, broken only to 
my ear by our quiet movements, that Delavoye 
dabbed a quick hand on my candle and doused 
his own against the wall. Without a whisper he 
drew me downward, and there we cowered in throb- 
bing darkness, but still not a sound that I could 
hear outside my skin. Then the floor above 
opened a lighted mouth with a gilded roof; black 
legs swung before our noses, found the step-ladder 
and came running down. The cigars were on the 
opposite side. The man knew all about them, 
found the right box without a light, and turned 
to go running up. 

Now he must see us, as we saw him and his 
smooth, smug, flunkey’s face to the whites of its 
30 


Unhallowed Ground 

upturned eyes! My fists were clenched — and 
often I wonder what I meant to do. What I did 
was to fall forward upon oozing palms as the trap- 
door was let down with a bang. 

“Didn’t he see us, Delavoye? Are you sure he 
didn’t?” I chattered, as he struck a match. 

“Quite. I was watching his eyes — weren’t 
you ? ” 

“Yes — but they got all blurred at the finish.” 

“Well, pull yourself together; now’s our time! 
It’s an empty room overhead; it wasn’t half lit 
up. But we haven’t done anything, remember, 
if they do catch us.” 

He was on the steps already, but I had no de- 
sire to argue with him. I was as ripe for a risk 
as Delavoye, as anxious to escape after the one 
we had already run. The trap-door went up 
slowly, pushing something over it into a kind of 
tent. 

“It’s only the rug,” purred Delavoye. “I heard 
him take it up — thank God — as well as put it down 
again. Now hold the candle; now the trap-door, 
till I hold it up for you.” 

And we squirmed up into a vast apartment, not 
only empty as predicted, but left in darkness made 
visible by the solitary light we carried now. The 
31 


Witching Hill 

little stray flame was mirrored in a floor like black 
ice, then caught the sheen of the tumbled rug that 
Delavoye would stay to smooth, then twinkled in 
the diamond panes of book-cases like church win- 
dows, flickered over a high altar of a mantel-piece, 
and finally displayed our stealthy selves in the 
window by which we left the house. 

“ Thank God! ,, said Delavoye as he shut it 
down again. “That’s something like a breath of 
air!” 

“Hush!” I whispered, with my back to him. 

“What is it?” 

“I thought I heard shouts of laughter.” 

“You’re right. There they go again! I believe 
we’ve struck a heavy entertainment.” 

In a dell behind the house, a spreading cedar 
caught the light of windows that we could not see. 
Delavoye crept to the intermediate angle, turned 
round, and beckoned in silhouette against the 
tree. 

“High jinks and junketings!” he chuckled when 
I joined him. “The old bloke must be away. 
Shall we risk a peep?” 

My answer was to lead the way for once, and it 
was long before we exchanged another syllable. 
But in a few seconds, and for more minutes, we 
32 


Unhallowed Ground 

crouched together at an open window, seeing life 
with all our innocent eyes. 

It was a billiard-room into which we gazed, but 
it was not being used for billiards. One end of 
the table was turned into a champagne bar; it 
bristled with bottles in all stages of depletion, with 
still an unopened magnum towering over pails of 
ice, silver dishes of bonbons, cut decanters of wine 
and spirits. At the other end a cluster of flushed 
faces hung over a spinning roulette wheel; nearly all 
young women and men, smoking fiercely in a sil- 
ver haze, for the moment terribly intent; and as 
the ball ticked and rattled, the one pale face pres- 
ent, that of the melancholy croupier, showed a dry 
zest as he intoned the customary admonitions. 
They were new to me then ; now I seem to recog- 
nise through the years the Anglo-French of his 
“rien ne va plus” and all the rest. There were 
notes and gold among the stakes. The old rogue 
raked in his share without emotion; one of the 
ladies embraced him for hers; and one had stuck 
a sprig of maidenhair in his venerable locks; but 
there he sat, with the deferential dignity of a by- 
gone school, the only very sober member of the 
party it was his shame to serve. 

The din they made before the next spin! It was 

33 


Witching Hill 

worse when it died down into plainer speech; play- 
ful buffets were exchanged as freely; but one young 
blood left the table with a deadly dose of raw spirit, 
and sat glowering over it on a raised settee while 
the wheel went round again. I did not watch the 
play; the wild, attentive faces were enough for 
me; and so it was that I saw a bedizened beauty 
go mad before my eyes. It was the madness of 
utter ecstasy — wails of laughter and happy male- 
dictions — and then for that unopened magnum! 
By the neck she caught it, whirled it about her 
like an Indian club, then down on the table with 
all her might and the effect of a veritable shell. 
A ribbon of blood ran down her dress as she 
recoiled, and the champagne flooded the green 
board like bubbling ink; but the old croupier 
hardly looked up from the pile of notes and gold 
that he was counting out with his sly, wintry 
smile. 

“You saw she had a fiver on the number? You 
may watch roulette many a long night without 
seeing that again !” 

It was Delavoye whispering as he dragged me 
away. He was the cool one now. Too excitable 
for me in the early stages of our adventure, he 
was not only the very man for all the rest, but a 
34 



It was the madness of utter ecstasy 




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zmm m: lexer x re zux sexz is zx re 

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kanons ml is iZ izcnr zis zis 
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“5c I mcemrz ze ^rrsi m~ irc~i ~sxriei zr me 
X me-rizrirmisr mnsmence. I lti z zexzL 
*Tken zew ie jcu iorzunc fer rcr * 

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ZLC- 

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' z v-m r:: mi r: x. * m.x- rcr m 
mem *mZe me i^eer zr: nr wzs rveerer ziz 


Witching Hill 

than we had left it hours ago; and the little new 
suburban houses surpassed all pleasures and pal- 
aces, behind their kindly lamps, with the clean 
stars watching over them and us. 

“I don’t want you to think the worse of me,” 
said Delavoye, slipping his arm through mine as 
he led me on; “but at this particular moment I 
should somehow think less of myself if I didn’t 
tell you, after all we’ve been through together, 
that I was really quite severely tempted to take 
that lace and those diamonds!” 

I knew it. 

“Well,” I said, with the due deliberation of my 
normal Northern self, “you’d have had a sort of 
right to them. But that’s nothing! Why, man, 
I was as near as a toucher to laying yon butler 
dead at our feet!” 

“Then we’re all three in the same boat, Gil- 
lon.” 

“Which three?” 

It was my turn to stand still, outside his house. 
And now there was excitement enough in his dark 
face to console me for all mine. 

“You, and I, and poor old Sir Christopher.” 

“Poor old hypocrite! Didn’t I hear that his 
wife died a while ago?” 

36 


Unhallowed Ground 

“Only last year. That makes it sound worse. 
But in reality it’s an excuse, because of course he 
would fall a victim all the more easily.” 

“A victim to what?” 

“My good Gillon, don’t you see that he’s up to 
the very same games on the very same spot as my 
ignoble kinsman a hundred and fifty years ago? 
Blood, liquor, and ladies as before! We admit 
that between us even you and I had the makings 
of a thief and a murderer while we were under 
that haunted roof. Don’t you believe in influ- 
ences?” 

“Not of that kind,” said I heartily. “I never 
did, and I doubt I never shall.” 

Delavoye laughed in the starlight, but his lips 
were quivering, and his eyes were like stars them- 
selves. But I held up my hand: the nightingale 
was singing in the wood exactly as when we 
plunged below the earth. Somehow it brought 
us together again, and there we stood listening 
till a clock struck twelve in the distant village. 

“ £ ’Tis now the very witching time of night,’” 
said Uvo Delavoye, “‘when church-yards yawn’ 
— like our back garden!” I might have guessed 
his favourite play, but his face lit up before my 
memory. “And shall I tell you, Gillon, the real 
37 


Witching Hill 

name of this whole infernal hill and estate? It’s 
Witching Hill, my man, it’s Witching Hill from 
this night forth!” 

And Witching Hill it still remains to me. 


38 


The House with Red Blinds 

VO DELAVOYE had developed a theory to 



match his name for the Estate. The bale- 
ful spirit of the notorious Lord Mulcaster still 
brooded over Witching Hill, and the innocent oc- 
cupiers of the Queen Anne houses were one and all 
liable to the malign influence. Such was the mod- 
est proposition, put as fairly as can be expected of 
one who resisted it from the first; for both by 
temperament and training I was perhaps unusu- 
ally proof against this kind of thing. But then I 
always held that Delavoye himself did not begin 
by believing in his own idea, that he never thought 
of it before our subterranean adventure, and would 
have forgotten all about it but for the house with 
red blinds. 

That vermilion house with the brave blinds of 
quite another red! I can still see them bleaching 
in the glare of those few August days. 

It was so hot that the prematurely bronze leaves 
of the horse-chestnuts, behind the odd numbers in 
Mulcaster Park, were as crisp as tinfoil, while a 
tawny stubble defied the garden rollers of those 


39 


Witching Hill 

tenants who had not been driven to the real coun- 
try or the seaside. Half our inhabited houses were 
either locked up empty, or in the hands of servants 
who spent their time gossiping at the gate. And 
I personally was not surprised when the red blinds 
stayed down in their turn. 

The Abercromby Royles were a young couple 
who might be expected to mobilise at short notice, 
in spite of the wife's poor health, for they had no 
other ties. The mere fact of their departure on 
Bank Holiday, when the rest of the Estate were on 
the river, meant no more to me than a sudden 
whim on the lady’s part; but then I never liked 
the looks of her or her very yellow hair, least of 
all in a bath chair drawn by her indulgent hus- 
band after business hours. Mr. Royle was a lit- 
tle solicitor, who himself flouted tradition with a 
flower in his coat and a straw hat worn slightly 
on one side; but with him I had made friends over 
an escape of gas which he treated as a joke rather 
than a grievance. He seemed to me just the sort 
of man to humour his sort of wife, even to the 
extent of packing off the servants on board wages, 
as they were said to have done before leaving 
themselves. Certainly I never thought of a sinis- 
ter explanation until Uvo Delavoye put one into 
40 


The House with Red Blinds 

my head, and then I had no patience with him. 

“It’s this heat,” I declared; “it’s hot enough 
to uproot anybody.” 

“I wonder,” said he, “how many other places 
they’ve found too hot for them!” 

“ But why should you wonder any such rot, when 
you say yourself that you’ve never even nodded to 
Abercromby Royle?” 

“Because I’ve had my eye on him all the same, 
Gillon, as obvious material for the evil genius of 
the place.” 

“I see! I forgot you were spoiling for a second 
case.” 

“Case or no case,” replied Uvo, “households 
don’t usually disperse at a moment’s notice, and 
their cook told our butcher that it was only sprung 
on them this morning. I have it from our own 
old treasure, if you want to know, so you may 
take it or leave it at that for what it’s worth. But 
if I had your job, Gilly, and my boss was away, I 
don’t know that I should feel altogether happy 
about my Michaelmas rent.” 

Nor was I quite so happy as I had been. I was 
spending the evening at my friend’s, but I cut it 
rather shorter than I had intended; and on my 
way to the unlet house in which I lodged, I could 
4i 


Witching Hill 

not help stopping outside the one with the drawn 
red blinds. They looked natural enough at this 
time of night; but all the windows were shut as 
well; there was no sign of life about the house. 
And then, as I went my way, I caught a sound 
which I had just heard as I approached, but not 
while standing outside the gate. It was the sound 
of furtive hammering — a few taps and then a pause 
— but I retraced my steps too quietly to prolong 
the pause a second time. It was some devil’s tat- 
too on the very door of the empty house, and as I 
reached up my hand to reply with the knocker, 
the door flew open and the devil was Abercromby 
Royle himself. 

He looked one, too, by the light of the lamp op- 
posite, but only for a moment. What impressed 
me most about our interview, even at the time, 
was the clemency of my reception by an obviously 
startled man. He interrupted my apologies to 
commend my zeal; as for explanations, it was for 
him to explain to me, if I would be good enough 
to step inside. I did so with a strange sense of 
impersonal fear or foreboding, due partly to the 
stuffy darkness of the hall, partly to a quiver of 
the kindly hand upon my shoulder. The dining- 
room, however, was all lit up, and like an oven. 

42 


The House with Red Blinds 

Whiskey was on the sideboard, and I had to join 
Mr. Royle in the glass that loosened his tongue. 

It was quite true about the servants; they had 
gone first, and he was the last to leave the ship. 
The metaphor did not strike me as unfortunate 
until it was passed off with a hollow laugh. Mr. 
Royle no longer disguised his nervous worry; he 
seemed particularly troubled about his wife, who 
appeared to have followed the servants into the 
country, and whom he could not possibly join. 
He mentioned that he had taken her up to town 
and seen her off ; then, that he was going up again 
himself by the last train that night; finally — after 
a pause and between ourselves — that he was sail- 
ing immediately for America. When I heard this 
I thought of Delavoye; but Royle seemed so glad 
when he had told me, and soon in such a stew 
about his train, that I felt certain there could be 
nothing really wrong. It was a sudden call, and 
a great upset to him; he made no secret of either 
fact or any of his plans. He had left his baggage 
that morning at the club where he was going to 
sleep. He even told me what had brought him 
back, and that led to an equally voluntary ex- 
planation of the hammering I had heard in the 
road. 


43 


Witching Hill 

“Would you believe it? I’d forgotten all about 
our letters!” exclaimed Abercromby Royle as we 
were about to leave the house together. “Having 
the rest of the day on my hands, I thought I 
might as well come back myself to give the neces- 
sary instructions. But it's no use simply filling 
up the usual form; half your correspondence still 
finds its way into your empty house; so I was 
just tacking this lid of an old cigar box across the 
slot. I’ll finish it, if you don’t mind, and then we 
can go so far together.” 

But we went together all the way, and I saw 
him off in a train laden with Bank Holiday water- 
folk. I thought he scanned them somewhat 
closely on the platform, and that some of my 
remarks fell on deaf ears. Among other things, 
I said I would gladly have kept the empty house 
aired, had he cared to trust me with his key. It 
was an office that I had undertaken for more than 
one of our absentee tenants. But the lawyer’s 
only answer was a grip of the hand as the train 
began to move. And it seemed to me a haunted 
face that dissolved into the night, despite the 
drooping flower in the flannel coat and the hat 
worn a little on one side. 

It would be difficult to define the impression 
44 


The House with Red Blinds 

left upon my mind by the whole of this equivocal 
episode; enough that, for more than one obvious 
reason, I said not a word about it to Uvo Dela- 
voye. Once or twice I was tempted by his own 
remarks about Abercromby Royle, but on each 
occasion I set my teeth and defended the absent 
man as though we were both equally in the dark. 
It seemed a duty, after blundering into his affairs 
as I had done. But that very week brought forth 
developments which made a necessary end of all 
such scruples. 

I was interviewing one of our foremen in a house 
that had to be ready by half-quarter-day, when 
Delavoye came in with a gleaming eye to tell me 
I was wanted. 

"It’s about our friend Royle,” he added, try- 
ing not to crow. “I was perfectly right. They’re 
on his tracks already!” 

“Who are?” I demanded, when we were out of 
earshot of the men. 

“Well, only one fellow so far, but he’s breath- 
ing blood-hounds and Scotland Yard! It’s Coysh, 
the trick-bicycle inventor; you must know the 
lunatic by name; but let me tell you that he 
sounds unpleasantly sane about your limb of the 
law. A worse case ” 


45 


« Witching Hill 

“ Where is he?” I interrupted hotly. “And 
what the devil does he want with me?” 

“Thinks you can help him put salt on the bird 
that’s flown, as sort of clerk to the whole aviary! 
I found him pounding at your office door. He’d 
been down to Royle’s and found it all shut up, of 
course — like his office in town, he says ! Put that 
in your pipe and smoke it, Gilly! It’s a clear case, 
I’m afraid, but you’d better have it from the 
fountain-head. I said I thought I could unearth 
you, and he’s waiting outside for you now.” 

I looked through a window with a scroll of white- 
wash on the pane. In the road a thick-set man 
was fanning his big head with a wide soft hat, 
which I could not but notice that he wore with a 
morning coat and brown boots. The now emi- 
nent engineer is not much more conventional than 
the hot-headed patentee who in those days had 
still to find himself (and had lately been looking in 
the wrong place, with a howling Press at his heels). 
But even then the quality of the man outshone 
the eccentricities of the supercrank. And I had 
a taste of it that August morning; a foretaste, 
when I looked into the road and saw worry and 
distress where I expected only righteous indigna- 
tion. 


46 


The House with Red Blinds 

I went down and asked him in, and his face lit 
up like a stormy sunbeam. But the most level- 
headed man in England could not have come to 
the point in fewer words or a more temperate 
tone. 

“Fm glad your friend has told you what Fve 
come about. Fm a plain speaker, Mr. Gillon, and 
I shall be plainer with you than Fve been with 
him, because he tells me you know Abercromby 
Royle. In that case you won’t start a scandal — 
because to know the fellow is to like him — and I 
only hope it may prove in your power to prevent 
one.” 

“I’ll do anything I can, Mr. Coysh,” I went so 
far as to say. But I was already taken by sur- 
prise. And so, I could see, was Uvo Delavoye. 

“I’ll hold you to that,” said Coysh frankly. 
“When did you see him last, Mr. Gillon?” 

“Do you mean Mr. Royle?” I stammered, turn- 
ing away from Delavoye. If only he had not been 
there! 

“Of course I do; and let me tell you, Mr. Gil- 
lon, this is a serious matter for the man you know. 
You won’t improve his chances by keeping any- 
thing back. When did you see him last?” 

“Monday night,” I mumbled. 

47 


Witching Hill 

But Delavoye heard. 

“Monday night ?” he interjected densely. 
“Why, it was on Monday he went away!” 

“Exactly — by the last train.” 

“But we heard they’d gone hours before!” 

“We heard wrong, so far as Royle was con- 
cerned. I came across him after I left you, and I 
saw him off myself.” 

Coysh had a sharp eye on both of us, and Dela- 
voye’s astonishment was not lost upon him. But 
it was at me that he looked last and longest. 

“And you keep this to yourself from Monday 
night till now?” 

“What’s about it?” I demanded, falling into my 
own vernacular in my embarrassment. 

“It only looks rather as though you were behind 
the scenes,” replied Coysh simply. And his hon- 
esty called to mine. 

“Well, so I was, to a certain extent,” I cried; 
“but I got there by accident, I blundered in where 
I wasn’t wanted, and yet the fellow treated me like 
a gentleman! That’s why I never gave it away. 
But,” I added with more guile, “there was really 
nothing to give away.” And with that I impro- 
vised a garbled version of my last little visit to 
the house with red blinds, which I did not say I 
48 



“ In that case you won’t start a scandal! ” 



The House with Red Blinds 

had discovered in utter darkness, any more than 
I described the sound which had attracted my at- 
tention, or the state of the householder’s nerves. 

“Very good,” said Coysh, making notes on an 
envelope. “And then you saw him off by the last 
train: did he say where he was going at that time 
of night?” 

“To sleep at some club, I understood.” 

“And next morning?” 

But I was sorry I had gone so far. 

“Mr. Coysh,” I said, “I’m here to let the houses 
on this Estate, and to look after odd jobs for the 
people who take them. It’s not my business to 
keep an eye on the tenants themselves, still less 
to report their movements, and I must respect- 
fully decline to say another word about Mr. Aber- 
cromby Royle.” 

The engineer put away his envelope with a shrug. 

“Oh, very well; then you force me to go into 
details which I on my side would vastly prefer to 
keep to myself; but if you are sincere you will 
treat them as even more confidential than your 
own relations with Mr. Royle. You say you are 
hardly friends. I shall believe it if you stick to 
your present attitude when you’ve heard my story. 
Royle and I, however, have been only too friendly 
49 


Witching Hill 

in the past, and I should not forget it even now — 
if I could find him.” 

He made a meaning pause, of which I did not 
avail myself, though Delavoye encouraged me with 
an eager eye. 

“He was not only my solicitor,” continued 
Coysh; “he has acted as my agent in a good many 
matters which neither lawyers nor patent agents 
will generally undertake. You’ve heard of my 
Mainspring bicycle, of course? It was in his 
hands, and would have paid him well when it comes 
off, which is only a question of time.” His broad 
face lit with irrelevant enthusiasm and glowed 
upon us each in turn. “When you think that by 
the very act of pedalling on the level we might be 
winding up — but there! It’s going to revolutionise 
the most popular pastime of the day, and make 
my fortune incidentally; but meanwhile I’ve one or 
two pot boilers that bring me in a living wage in 
royalties. One’s an appliance they use in every 
gold mine in South Africa. It was taken up by 
the biggest people in Johannesburg, and of course 
I’ve done very well out of it, this last year or two; 
but ever since Christmas my little bit has been 
getting more and more overdue. Royle had the 
whole thing in hand. I spoke to him about it 
50 


The House with Red Blinds 

more than once. At last I told him that if he 
couldn’t cope with our paymasters out there, I’d 
have a go at them myself; but what I really feared 
was that he was keeping the remittances back, 
never for a moment that he was tampering with 
each one as it came. That, however, is what has 
been going on all this year. I have the certified 
accounts to prove it, and Royle must have bolted 
just when he knew the mail would reach me where 
I’ve been abroad. I don’t wonder, either; he’s 
been faking every statement for the last six 
months!” 

“But not before?” cried Delavoye, as though it 
mattered. 

Coysh turned to him with puzzled eyes. 

“No; that’s the funny part of it,” said he. 
“You’d think a man who went so wrong — hun- 
dreds, in these few months — could never have been 
quite straight. But not a bit of it. I’ve got the 
accounts; they were as right as rain till this last 
spring.” 

“I knew it!” exclaimed Delavoye in wild excite- 
ment. 

“May I ask what you knew?” 

Coysh was staring, as well he might. 

“Only that the whole mischief must have hap- 
pened since these people came here to live!” 

51 


Witching Hill 

“Do you suggest that they’ve been living be- 
yond their means?” 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Delavoye, as 
readily as though nothing else had been in his 
mind. 

“Well, and I should say you were right,” re- 
joined the engineer, “if it wasn’t for the funniest 
part of all. When a straight man goes off the 
rails, there’s generally some tremendous cause; but 
one of the surprises of this case, as my banker has 
managed to ascertain, is that Abercromby Royle 
is in a position to repay every penny. He has 
more than enough to do it, lying idle in his bank; 
so there was no apparent motive for the crime, and 
I for my part am prepared to treat it as a sudden 
aberration.” 

“Exactly!” cried Delavoye, as though he were 
the missing man’s oldest friend and more eager 
than either of us to find excuses for him. 

“Otherwise,” continued Coysh, “I wouldn’t 
have taken you gentlemen into my confidence. 
But the plain fact is that I’m prepared to condone 
the felony at my own risk in return for immediate 
and complete restitution.” He turned his atten- 
tion entirely to me. “Now, Royle can’t make 
good unless you help him by helping me to find 
him. I won’t be hard on him if you do, I promise 
52 


The House with Red Blinds 

you! Not a dozen men in England shall ever 
know. But if I have to hunt for him it’ll be with 
detectives and a warrant, and the fat’ll be in the 
fire for all the world to smell!” 

What could I do but give in after that? I had 
not promised to keep any secrets, and it was clearly 
in the runaway’s interests to disclose his destina- 
tion on the conditions laid down. Of his victim’s 
good faith I had not a moment’s doubt; it was as 
patent as his magnanimous compassion for Aber- 
cromby Royle. He blamed himself for not look- 
ing after his own show; it was unfair to take a 
poor little pettifogging solicitor and turn him by 
degrees into one’s trusted business man; it was 
trying him too high altogether. He spoke of the 
poor wretch as flying from a wrath that existed 
chiefly in his own imagination, and even for that 
he blamed himself. It appeared that Coysh had 
vowed to Royle that he would have no mercy on 
anybody who was swindling him, no matter who 
it might be. He had meant it as a veiled warning, 
but Royle might have known his bark was worse 
than his bite, and have made a clean breast of the 
whole thing there and then. If only he had ! And 
yet I believe we all three thought the better of 
him because he had not. 

53 


Witching Hill 

But it was not too late, thanks to me! I could 
not reveal the boat or line by which Royle was 
travelling, because it had never occurred to me to 
inquire, but Coysh seemed confident of finding out. 
His confidence was of the childlike type which is 
the foible of some strong men. He knew exactly 
what he was going to do, and it sounded the sim- 
plest thing in the world. Royle would be met on 
the other side by a cable which would bring him to 
his senses — and by one of Pinkerton’s young men 
who would shadow him until it did. Either he 
would cable back the uttermost farthing through 
his bank, or that young man would tap him on 
the shoulder without more ado. It was delightful 
to watch a powerful mind clearing wire entangle- 
ments of detail in its leap to a picturesque conclu- 
sion; and we had further displays for our benefit; 
for there was no up-train for an hour and more, 
and that set the inventor off upon his wonder- 
ful bicycle, which was to accumulate hill power 
by getting wound up automatically on the level. 
Nothing is so foolish as the folly of genius, and I 
shall never forget that great man’s obstinate de- 
fence of his one supreme fiasco, or the diagram 
that he drew on an unpapered wall while Uvo Dela- 
voye and I attended with insincere solemnity. 

54 


The House with Red Blinds 

But Uvo was no better when we were at last 
alone. And his craze seemed to me the crazier of 
the two. 

“It’s as plain as a pikestaff, my good Gillon! 
This fellow Royle comes here an honest man, and 
instantly starts on a career of fraud— for no earthly 
reason whatsoever !’’ 

“So you want to find him an unearthly one?" 

“I don't; it's there — and a worse case than the 
last. Old Sir Christopher was the only sober man 
at his own orgy, but my satanic ancestor seems to 
have made a mighty clean job of this poor brute!" 

“I’m not so sure," said I gloomily. “I'm only 
sure of one thing — that the dead can’t lead the 
living astray — and you’ll never convince me that 
they can." 

It was no use arguing, for we were oil and vine- 
gar on this matter, and were beginning to recognise 
the fact. But I was grateful to Uvo Delavoye for 
his attitude on another point. I tried to explain 
why I had never told him about my last meeting 
with Abercromby Royle. It was not necessary; 
there he understood me in a moment; and so it 
was in almost everything except this one perverse 
obsession, due in my opinion to a morbid imagina- 
tion, which in its turn I attributed to the wretched 

55 


Witching Hill 

muddle that the Egyptian climate had made of 
poor Uvo’s inner man. While not actually an in- 
valid, there was little hope of his being fit for work 
of any sort for a year or more; and I remember 
feeling glad when he told me he had obtained a 
reader’s ticket for the British Museum, but very 
sorry when I found that his principal object was 
to pursue his Witching Hill will-o’-the-wisp to an 
extent impossible in the local library. Indeed, it 
was no weather for close confinement on even the 
healthiest intellectual quest. Yet it was on his 
way home from the museum that Uvo had picked 
up Coysh outside my office, and that was where 
he was when Coysh came down again before the 
week was out. 

This time I was in, and sweltering over the 
schedule of finishings for the house in which he 
had found me before, when my glass door dark- 
ened and the whole office shook beneath his omi- 
nous tread. With his back to the light, the little 
round man looked perfectly black with rage; and 
if he did not actually shake his fist in my face, that 
is the impression that I still retain of his outward 
attitude. 

His words came in a bitter torrent, but their 
meaning might have been stated in one breath. 
56 


The House with Red Blinds 

Royle had not gone to America at all. Neither 
in his own name nor any other had he booked his 
passage at the London office of the Tuesday, or 
either of the Wednesday steamers, nor as yet in 
any of those sailing on the following Saturday. So 
Coysh declared, with characteristic conviction, as 
proof positive that a given being could not possibly 
have sailed for the United States under any con- 
ceivable disguise or alias. He had himself made a 
round of the said London offices, armed with pho- 
tographs of Abercromby Royle. That settled the 
matter. It also branded me in my visitor’s blaz- 
ing eyes as accessory before or after the flight, and 
the deliberate author of a false scent which had 
wasted a couple of invaluable days. 

It was no use trying to defend myself, and Coysh 
told me it was none. He had no time to listen to 
a “jackanapes in office,” as he called me to my 
face. I could not help laughing in his. All he 
wanted and intended to discover was the where- 
abouts of Mrs. Royle — the last thing I knew, or 
had thought about before that moment — but in 
my indignation I referred him to the post-office. 
By way of acknowledgment he nearly shivered my 
glass door behind him. 

I mopped my face and awaited Delavoye with 

57 


Witching Hill 

little patience, which ran out altogether when he 
entered with a radiant face, particularly full of his 
own egregious researches in Bloomsbury. 

“I can’t do with that rot to-night!” I cried. 
“ Here’s this fat little fool going to get on the 
tracks of Mrs. Royle, and all through me! The 
woman’s an invalid; this may finish her off. If 
it were the man himself I wouldn’t mind. Where 
the devil do you suppose he is?” 

“I’ll tell you later,” said Uvo Delavoye, without 
moving a muscle of his mobile face. 

“ You’ll tell me — see here, Delavoye!” I splut- 
tered. “This is a serious matter to me; if you’re 
going to rot about it I’d rather you cleared out!” 

“But I’m not rotting, Gilly,” said he in a dif- 
ferent tone, yet with a superior twinkle that I 
never liked. “I never felt less like it in my life. 
I really have a pretty shrewd idea of my own, but 
you’re such an unbelieving dog that you must give 
me time before I tell you what it is. I should like 
first to know rather more about these alleged pec- 
ulations and this apparent flight, and whether 
Mrs. Royle’s in it all. I’m rather interested in 
the lady. But if you care to come in for supper 
you shall hear my views.” 

Of course I cared. But across the solid 

58 


ma- 


The House with Red Blinds 

hogany of more spacious days, though we had it 
to ourselves, we both seemed disinclined to re- 
sume the topic. Delavoye had got up some choice 
remnant of his father’s cellar, grotesquely out of 
keeping with our homely meal, but avowedly in 
my honour, and it seemed a time to talk about 
matters on which we were agreed. I was afraid 
I knew the kind of idea he had described as 
“ shrewd”; what I dreaded was some fresh appli- 
cation of his ingenious doctrine as to the local 
quick and dead, and a heated argument in our ex- 
travagant cups. And yet I did want to know what 
was in my companion’s mind about the Royles; 
for my own was no longer free from presentiments 
for which there was some ground in the facts of 
the case. But I was not going to start the sub- 
ject; and Delavoye steadily avoided it until we 
strolled out afterward (with humble pipes on top 
of that Madeira!). Then his arm slipped through 
mine, and it was with one accord that we drifted 
up the road toward the house with the drawn 
blinds. 

All these days, on my constant perambulations, 
it had stared me in the face with its shut windows, 
its dirty step, its idle chimneys. Every morning 
those odious blinds had greeted me like red eye- 
59 


Witching Hill 

lids hiding dreadful eyes. And once I had remem- 
bered that the very letter-box was set like teeth 
against the outer world. But this summer even- 
ing, as the house came between us and a noble 
moon, all was so changed and chastened that I 
thought no evil until Uvo spoke. 

“I can’t help feeling that there’s something 
wrong!” he exclaimed below his breath. 

“If Coysh is not mistaken,” I whispered back, 
“there’s something very wrong indeed.” 

He looked at me as though I had missed the 
point, and I awaited an impatient intimation of 
the fact. But there had been something strange 
about Uvo Delavoye all the evening; he had sin- 
gularly little to say for himself, and now he was 
saying it in so low a voice that I insensibly low- 
ered mine, though we had the whole road almost 
to ourselves. 

“You said you found old Royle quite alone the 
other night?” 

“Absolutely — so he said.” 

“You’ve no reason to doubt it, have you?” 

“No reason — none. Still, it did seem odd that 
he should hang on to the end — the master of the 
house — without a soul to do anything for him.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said Delavoye em- 
60 


The House with Red Blinds 

phatically. “It’s very odd. It means something. 
I believe I know what, too!” 

But he did not appear disposed to tell me, and 
I was not going to press him on the point. Nor 
did I share his confidence in his own powers of 
divination. What could he know of the case, that 
was unknown to me — unless he had some outside 
source of information all the time? 

That, however, I did not believe; at any rate 
he seemed bent upon acquiring more. He pushed 
the gate open, and was on the doorstep before I 
could say a word. I had to follow in order to 
remind him that his proceedings might be misun- 
derstood if they were seen. 

“Not a bit of it!” he had the nerve to say as 
he bent over the tarnished letter-box. “You’re 
with me, Gillon, and isn’t it your job to keep an 
eye on these houses?” 

“Yes, but ” 

“What’s the matter with this letter-box? It 
won’t open. ” 

“That’s so that letters can’t be shot into the 
empty hall. He nailed it up on purpose before he 
went. I found him at it.” 

“And didn’t it strike you as an extraordinary 
thing to do?” Uvo was standing upright now. 
61 


Witching Hill 

“Of course it did, or you’d have mentioned it to 
Coysh and me the other day.” 

It was no use denying the fact. 

“What’s happening to their letters?” he went 
on, as though I could know. 

“I expect they’re being re-directed.” 

“To the wife?” 

“I suppose so.” 

And my voice sank with my heart, and I felt 
ashamed, and repeated myself aggressively. 

“Exactly!” There was no supposing about 
Uvo. “The wife at some mysterious address in 
the country — poor soul!” 

“Where are you going now?” 

He had dived under the front windows, mutter- 
ing to himself as much as to me. I caught him 
up at the high side gate into the back garden. 

“Lend me a hand,” said Delavoye when he had 
tried the latch. 

“You’re not going over?” 

“That I am, and it’ll be your duty to fol- 
low. Or I could let you through. Well — if you 
won’t!” 

And in the angle between party-fence and gate 
he was struggling manfully when I went to his aid 
as a lesser evil; in a few seconds we were both in 
62 


The House with Red Blinds 

the back garden of the empty house, with the gate 
still bolted behind us. 

“Now, if it were ours,” resumed Delavoye when 
he had taken breath, “I should say the lavatory 
window was the vulnerable point. Lavatory win- 
dow, please!” 

“But, Delavoye, look here!” 

“Fm looking,” said he, and we faced each other 
in the broad moonlight that flooded the already 
ragged lawn. 

“If you think I’m going to let you break into 
this house, you’re very much mistaken.” 

I had my back to the windows I meant to hold 
inviolate. No doubt the moon revealed some reso- 
lution in my face and bearing, for I meant what 
I said until Delavoye spoke again. 

“Oh, very well! If it’s coming to brute force 
I have no more to say. The police will have to 
do it, that’s all. It’s their job, when you come 
to think of it; but it’ll be jolly difficult to get 
them to take it on, whereas you and I ” 

And he turned away with a shrug to point his 
admirable aposiopesis. 

“Man Uvo,” I said, catching him by the arm, 
“what’s this job you’re jawing about?” 

“You know well enough. You’re in the whole 

63 


Witching Hill 

mystery of these people far deeper than I am. I 
only want to find the solution.” 

“And you think you’ll find it in their house?” 

“I know I should,” said Uvo with quiet confi- 
dence. “But I don’t say it’ll be a pleasant find. 
I shouldn’t ask you to come in with me, but merely 
to accept some responsibility afterward — to-night, 
if we’re spotted. It will probably involve more 
kudos in the end. But I don’t want to let you in 
for more than you can stand meanwhile, Gillon.” 

That was enough for me. I myself led the way 
back to the windows, angrily enough until he took 
my arm, and then suddenly more at one with him 
than I had ever been before. I had seen his set 
lips in the moonlight, and felt the uncontrollable 
tremor of the hand upon my sleeve. 

It so happened that it was not necessary to 
break in after all. I had generally some keys 
about me and the variety of locks on our back 
doors was not inexhaustible. It was the scullery 
door in this case that a happy chance thus en- 
abled me to open. But I was now more deter- 
mined than Delavoye himself, and would have 
stuck at no burglarious excess to test his presci- 
ence, to say nothing of a secret foreboding which 
had been forming in my own mind. 

64 


The House with Red Blinds 

To one who went from house to house on the 
Estate as I did, and knew by heart the five or six 
plans on which builder and architect had rung the 
changes, darkness should have been no hindrance 
to the unwarrantable exploration I was about to 
conduct. I knew the way through these kitchens, 
and found it here without a false or noisy step. 
But in the hall I had to contend with the furniture 
which makes one interior as different from another 
as the houses themselves may be alike. The Ab- 
ercromby Royles had as much furniture as the 
Delavoyes, only of a different type. It was not 
massive and unsuitable, but only too dainty and 
multifarious, no doubt in accordance with the poor 
wife’s taste. I retained an impression of artful 
simplicity — an enamelled drain-pipe for the um- 
brellas — painted tambourines and counterfeit milk- 
stools — which rather charmed me in those days. 
But I had certainly forgotten a tall flower-stand 
outside the kitchen door, and over it went crash- 
ing as I set foot in the tesselated hall. I doubt if 
either of us drew breath for some seconds after the 
last bit of broken plant-pot lay still upon the tiles. 
Then I rubbed a match on my trousers, but it did 
not strike. Uvo had me by the hand before I 
could do it again. 


65 


Witching Hill 

“Do you want to blow up the house ?” he 
croaked. “Can’t you smell it for yourself?” 

Then I realised that the breath which I had just 
drawn was acrid with escaped gas. 

“It’s that asbestos stove again!” I exclaimed, 
recalling my first visit to the house. 

“Which asbestos stove?” 

“It’s in the dining-room. It was leaking as far 
back as June.” 

“Well, we’d better go in there first and open 
the window. Stop a bit!” 

The dining-room was just opposite the kitchen, 
and I was on the threshold when he pulled me 
back to tie my handkerchief across my nose and 
mouth. I did the same for Delavoye, and thus 
we crept into the room where I had been induced 
to drink with Royle on the night he went away. 

The full moon made smouldering panels of the 
French window leading into the garden, but little 
or no light filtered through the long red blind. 
Delavoye went round to it on tiptoe, and I still 
say it was a natural instinct that kept our voices 
down and our movements stealthy; that any other 
empty house, where we had no business at dead 
of night, would have had the same effect upon us. 
Delavoye speaks differently for himself; and I 
66 


The House with Red Blinds 

certainly heard him fumbling unduly for the blind- 
cord while I went over to the gas stove. At least 
I was going when I stumbled against a basket chair, 
which creaked without yielding to my weight, and 
creaked again as though some one had stirred in 
it. I recoiled, panic-stricken, and so stood until 
the blind flew up. Then the silence was sharply 
broken by a voice that I can still hear but hardly 
recognise as my own. 

It was Abercromby Royle who was sitting in 
the moonlight over the escaping stove; and I shall 
not describe him; but a dead flower still drooped 
from the lapel of a flannel jacket which the dead 
man had horribly outgrown. 

I drove Delavoye before me through the win- 
dow he had just opened; it was he who insisted 
on returning, ostensibly to turn off the gas, and I 
could not let him go alone. But neither could I 
face the ghastly occupant of the basket chair; and, 
again, it was Uvo Delavoye who was busy disen- 
gaging something from the frozen fingers when a 
loud rat-tat resounded through the house. 

It was grim to see how the corpse sat still and 
let us jump; but Uvo was himself before the knock 
was repeated. 

“You go, Gillon! ,, he said. “It’s only some-# 

67 


Witching Hill 

body who’s heard or seen us. Don’t you think 
we smelt the gas through the letter-box, and wasn’t 
it your duty ” 

The second knock cut him short, and I an- 
swered it without more ado. The night consta- 
ble on the beat, who knew me well by sight, was 
standing on the doorstep like a man, his right 
hand on his hip till he had blinded me with his 
lantern. A grunt of relief assured me of his rec- 
ognition, while his timely arrival was as promptly 
explained by an insensate volley in a more familiar 
voice. 

“ Don’t raise the road, Mr. Coysh!” I implored. 
“The man you want has been here all the time, 
and dead for the last five days!” 

That was a heavy night for me. If Coysh could 
have made it something worse, I think just at first 
he would; for he had been grossly deceived, and I 
had unwittingly promoted the deception. But his 
good sense and heart had brought him to reason 
before I accompanied the policeman to the station, 
leaving the other two on guard over a house as 
hermetically sealed as Delavoye and I had found it. 

At the police station I was stiffly examined by 
the superintendent; but the explanations that I 
now felt justified in giving, at Delavoye’s instiga- 
68 



a ' 


1 he man you want has been here all the time 




































































































1 










The House with Red Blinds 

tion, were received without demur and I was per- 
mitted to depart in outward peace. Inwardly I 
was not so comfortable, for Delavoye had not con- 
fined his hints to an excuse for entry, made the 
more convincing by the evil record of the asbes- 
tos stove. We had done some more whispering 
while the constable was locking up, and the im- 
pulsive Coysh had lent himself to our final coun- 
sels. The upshot was that I said nothing about 
my own farewell to Royle, though I dwelt upon 
my genuine belief that he had actually gone 
abroad. And I did say I was convinced that the 
whole affair had been an accident, due to the 
same loose gas-stove tap which had caused an es- 
cape six weeks before. 

That was my only actual lie, and on later con- 
sideration I began to wonder whether even it was 
not the truth. This was in Delavoye’s sanctum, 
on the first-floor-back at No. 7, and after midnight; 
for I had returned to find him in the clutches of 
excited neighbours, and had waited about till they 
all deserted him to witness the immediate removal 
of the remains. 

“What is there, after all,” I asked, “to show 
that it really was a suicide? He might have come 
back for something he’d forgotten, and kicked 
69 


Witching Hill 

against the tap by accident, as somebody did in 
June. Why make a point of doing the deed at 
home ? ” 

“Because he didn’t want his wife to know.” 

“But she was bound to know.” 

“Sooner or later, of course; but the later the 
better from his point of view, and their own 
shut-up house was the one place where he might 
not have been found for weeks. And that would 
have made all the difference — in the circum- 
stances.” 

“But what do you know about the circum- 
stances, Uvo?” I could not help asking a bit 
grimly; for his air of omniscience always pre- 
pared me for some specious creation of his own 
fancy. But for once I was misled, and I knew it 
from his altered face before I heard his unnatural 
voice. 

“What do I know?” repeated Uvo Delavoye. 
“Only that one of the neighbours has just had a 
wire from Mrs. Royle’s people to say that she’s 
got a son! That’s all,” he added, seizing a pipe, 
“but if you think a minute you’ll see that it ex- 
plains every other blessed thing.” 

And I saw that so it did, as far as the unfortu- 
nate Royle was concerned; and there was silence 
70 


The House with Red Blinds 

between us while I ran through my brief rela- 
tions with the dead man and Delavoye filled his 
pipe. 

“I never took to the fellow,” he continued, in a 
callous tone that almost imposed upon me. “I 
didn’t like his eternal button-hole, or the hat on 
one side, or the awful shade of their beastly blinds, 
or the colour of the good lady’s hair for that mat- 
ter! Just the wrong red and yellow, unless you 
happen to wear blue spectacles; and if you’d ever 
seen them saying good-bye of a morning you’d 
have wished you were stone-blind. But if ever 
I marry — which God forbid — may I play the game 
by my wife as he has done by his! Think of his 
feelings — with two such things hanging over him 
— those African accounts on the way as well! Is 
he to throw himself on his old friend’s mercy? 
No; he’s too much of a man, or perhaps too big 
a villain — but I know which I think now. What 
then? If there’s a hue and cry the wife’ll be the 
first to hear it; but if he lays a strong false scent, 
through an honest chap like you, it may just tide 
over the days that matter. So it has, in point of 
fact; but for me, there’d have been days and days 
to spare. But imagine yourself creeping back into 
your empty hole to die like a rat, and still think- 
71 


Witching Hill 

ing of every little thing to prevent your being 
found!” 

“And to keep it from looking like suicide when 
you were!” said I, with yet a lingering doubt in 
my mind. 

“Well, then I say you have the finest suicide 
ever!” declared Uvo Delavoye. “I only wish I 
knew when he began to think it all out. Was it 
before he called you in to see the tap that didn’t 
turn off? Or was it the defective tap that sug- 
gested the means of death? In either case, when 
he nailed up his letter-box, it was not, of course, 
to keep the postman from the door, but to keep 
the smell of gas inside if he or anybody else did 
come. That, I think, is fairly plain.” 

“It’s ingenious,” I conceded, “whether the 
idea’s your own or Royle’s.” 

“It must have been his,” said Delavoye with 
conviction. “You don’t engineer an elaborate 
fake and get in one of your best bits by accident. 
No; there was only one mistake poor Royle made, 
and it was unpremeditated. It was rather touch- 
ing too. Do you remember my trying to get 
something from his fingers, just when the knock 
came?” 

I took a breath through my teeth. 

72 


The House with Red Blinds 

“I wish I didn't. What was it?” 

“A locket with yellow hair in it. And he’d 
broken the glass, and his thumb was on the hair 
itself! I don’t suppose,” added Delavoye, “it 
would have meant to anybody else what it must 
to you and me, Gillon; but I’m not sorry I got 
it out of his clutches in time.” 

Yet now he could shudder in his turn. 

“And to think,” I said at last, recalling the se- 
cret and forgotten foreboding with which I myself 
had entered the house of death; “only to think 
that at the last I was more prepared for murder 
than suicide! I almost suspected the poor chap 
of having killed his wife, and shut her up there!” 

“Did you?” said Delavoye, with an untimely 
touch of superiority. “That never occurred to 
me.” 

“But you must have thought something was 
up?” 

“I didn’t think. I knew.” 

“Not what had happened?” 

“More or less.” 

“I wish you’d tell me how!” 

Uvo smiled darkly as he shook his head. 

“It’s no use telling certain people certain things. 
You shall see for yourself with your own two eyes.” 
73 


Witching Hill 

He got up and crossed the room. “You know 
what I’m up to at the British Museum; did I tell 
you they’d got a fine old last-century plan of the 
original Estate? Well, for weeks Fve had a man 
in Holborn trying to get me a copy for love or 
money. He’s just succeeded. Here it is.” 

A massive hereditary desk, as mid-Victorian as 
all the Delavoye possessions, stood before the open 
window that looked out into the moonlight; on 
this desk was a reading gas-lamp, with a smelly 
rubber tube, of the same maligned period; and 
there and thus was the plan spread like a table- 
cloth, pinned down by ash-tray, ink-pot, and the 
lamp itself, and duly overhung by our two young 
heads. I carry it pretty clearly still in my mind’s 
eye. The Estate alone, or rather the whole origi- 
nal property and nothing else, was outlined and 
filled in, and the rest left as white as age permitted. 
It was like a map of India upside down. The 
great house was curiously situated in the apex, but 
across the road a clump of shrubberies stood for 
Ceylon. Our present Estate was at the thick end, 
as Delavoye explained, and it was a thrilling mo- 
ment when he laid his nail upon the Turkish Pa- 
vilion, actually so marked, and we looked out into 
the moonlit garden and beheld its indubitable site. 
74 


The House with Red Blinds 

The tunnel was not marked. But Delavoye ran 
his finger to the left, and stopped on an emblem 
illegibly inscribed in small faint ancient print. 

“It’s ‘Steward’s Lodge/” said he as I peered in 
vain; “you shall have a magnifying glass, if you 
like, to show there’s no deception. But the story 
I’m afraid you’ll have to take on trust for the mo- 
ment. If you want to see chapter and verse, apply 
for a reader’s ticket and I’ll show you both any 
day at the B.M. I only struck them myself this 
afternoon, in a hairy tome called ‘The Mulcaster 
Peerage ’ — and a whole page of sub-titles. They’re 
from one of the epistles of the dear old sinner him- 
self, written as though other people’s money had 
never melted in his noble fist. I won’t spoil it by 
misquotation. But you’ll find that there was once 
an unjust steward, who robbed the wicked lord of 
this very vineyard, and then locked himself into 
his lodge, and committed suicide rather than face 
the fearful music!” 

I did not look at Delavoye; but I felt his face 
glowing like a live coal close to mine. 

“This road isn’t marked,” I said as though I 
had been simply buried in the plan. 

“Naturally; it wasn’t made. Would you like 
to see where it ran?” 


75 


Witching Hill 

“I shouldn’t mind,” I said with the same poor 
quality of indifference. 

He took a bit of old picture-rod, which he kept 
for a ruler on his desk, and ran a pair of parallel 
lines in blue pencil from west to east. The top 
line came just under the factor’s cottage. 

“It’s in this very road!” I exclaimed. 

“Not only that,” returned Delavoye, “but if 
you go by the scale, and pace the distance, you’ll 
find that the Steward’s Lodge was on the present 
site of the house with red blinds!” 

And he turned away to fill another pipe, as 
though finely determined not to crow or glow in 
my face. But I did not feel myself an object for 
magnanimity. 

“I thought it was only your ignoble kinsman, 
as you call him,” I said, “who was to haunt and 
influence us all. If it’s to be his man-servant, his 
maid-servant ” 

“Stop,” cried Delavoye; “stop in time, my dear 
man, before you come to one or other of us ! Can 
you seriously think it a mere coincidence that a 
thing like this should happen on the very spot 
where the very same thing has happened before?” 

“I don’t see why not.” 

“I had only the opposite idea to go upon, Gilly, 

76 


The House with Red Blinds 

and yet I found exactly what I expected to find. 
Was that a fluke?” 

“Or a coincidence — call it what you like.” 

“Call it what you like,” retorted Delavoye with 
great good-humour. “But if the same sort of 
thing happens again, will it still be a coincidence 
or a fluke?” 

“In my view, always,” I replied, hardening my 
heart for ever. 

“That’s all right, then,” he said with his school- 
boy laugh. “You pays your money and you takes 
your choice.” 


77 


A Vicious Circle 


T HE Berridges of Berylstow — a house near 
my office in the Witching Hill Road — were 
perhaps the very worthiest family on the whole 
Estate. 

Old Mr. Berridge, by a lifetime of faithful ser- 
vice, had risen tp a fine position in one of the old- 
est and most substantial assurance societies in the 
City of London. Mrs. Berridge, herself a woman 
of energetic character, devoted every minute that 
she could spare from household duties, punctili- 
ously fulfilled, to the glorification of the local Vicar 
and the denunciation of modern ideas. There was 
a daughter, whose name of Beryl had inspired that 
of the house; she was her mother’s miniature and 
echo, and had no desire to ride a bicycle or do 
anything else that Mrs. Berridge had not done be- 
fore her. An only son, Guy, completed the partie 
carr'ee , and already made an admirable accountant 
under his father’s eagle eye. He was about thirty 
years of age, had a mild face but a fierce mous- 
tache, was engaged to be married, and already 
78 


A Vicious Circle 

picking up books and pictures for the new 
home. 

As a bookman Guy Berridge stood alone. 

“ There’s nothing like them for furnishing a 
house,” said he; “and nowadays they’re so cheap. 
There’s that new series of Victorian Classics — one- 
and-tenpence-half-penny! And those Eighteenth 
Century Masterpieces — I don’t know when I shall 
get time to read them, but they’re worth the money 
for the binding alone — especially with everything 
peculiar taken out!” 

Peculiar was a family epithet of the widest 
possible significance. It was peculiar of Guy, in 
the eyes of the other three, to be in such a hurry 
to leave their comfortable home for one of his own 
on a necessarily much smaller scale. Miss Hem- 
ming, the future Mrs. Guy, was by no means de- 
ficient in peculiarity from his people’s point of 
view. She affected flowing fabrics of peculiar 
shades, and she had still more peculiar ideas of 
furnishing. On Saturday afternoons she would 
drag poor Guy into all the second-hand furniture 
shops in the neighbourhood — not even to save 
money, as Mrs. Berridge complained to her more 
intimate friends — but just to be peculiar. It 
seemed like a judgment when Guy fell so ill with 
79 


Witching Hill 

influenza, obviously contracted in one of those 
highly peculiar shops, that he had to mortgage 
his summer holiday by going away for a com- 
plete change early in the New Year. 

He went to country cousins of the suburban 
Hemmings; his own Miss Hemming went with 
him, and it was on their return that a difference 
was first noticed in the young couple. They no 
longer looked radiant together, much less when 
apart. The good young accountant would pass 
my window with a quite tragic face. And one 
morning, when we met outside, he told me that 
he had not slept a wink. 

That evening I went to smoke a pipe with Uvo 
Delavoye, who happened to have brought me into 
these people’s ken. And we were actually talking 
about Guy Berridge and his affairs when the maid 
showed him up into Uvo’s room. 

I never saw a man look quite so wretched. 
The mild face seemed to cower behind the trucu- 
lent moustache; the eyes, bright and bloodshot, 
winced when one met them. I got up to go, feeling 
instinctively that he had come to confide in Uvo. 
But Berridge read me as quickly as I read him. 

“ Don’t you go on my account,” said he gloom- 
ily. “I’ve nothing to tell Delavoye that I can’t 
80 


A Vicious Circle 

tell you, especially after giving myself away to 
you once already to-day. I daresay three heads 
will be better than two, and I know I can trust 
you both.” 

"Is anything wrong?” asked Uvo, when prelim- 
inary solicitations had reminded me that his visi- 
tor neither smoked nor drank. 

"Everything!” was the reply. 

"Not with your engagement, I hope?” 

"That’s it,” said Berridge, with his eyes on the 
carpet. 

"It isn’t— off?” 

"Not yet.” 

"I don’t want to ask more than I ought,” said 
Uvo, after a pause, "but I always imagine that, 
between people who’re engaged, the least little 
thing ” 

"It isn’t a little thing.” 

And the accountant shook his downcast head. 

"I only meant, my dear chap, if you’d had some 
disagreement ” 

"We’ve never had the least little word!” 

"Has she changed?” asked Uvo Delavoye. 

"Not that I know of,” replied Berridge; but he 
looked up as though it were a new idea; and there 
was more life in his voice. 

81 


Witching Hill 

“She’d tell you,” said Uvo, “if I know her.” 

“Do people tell each other?” eagerly inquired 
our friend. 

“They certainly ought, and I think Miss Hem- 
ming would.” 

“Ah! it’s easy enough for them!” cried the mis- 
erable young man. “Women are not liars and 
traitors because they happen to change their minds. 
Nobody thinks the worse of them for that; it’s 
their privilege, isn’t it? They can break off* as 
many engagements as they like; but if I did 
such a thing I should never hold up my head 
again!” 

He buried his hot face in his hands, and Dela- 
voye looked at me for the first time. It was a 
sympathetic look enough; and yet there was some- 
thing in it, a lift of the eyebrow, a light in the eye, 
that reminded me of the one point on which we 
always differed. 

“Better hide your head than spoil her life,” said 
he briskly. “But how long have you felt like 
doing either? I used to look on you as an ideal 
pair.” 

“ So we were,” said poor Berridge, readily. “ It’s 
most peculiar!” 

I saw a twitch at the corners of Uvo’s mouth; 

82 


A Vicious Circle 

but he was not the man for sly glances over a 
bowed head. 

“How long have you been engaged ?” he asked. 

“Ever since last September.” 

“You were here then, if I remember?” 

“Yes; it was just after my holiday.” 

“In fact you’ve been here all the time?” 

“Up to these last few weeks.” 

Delavoye looked round his room as a cross- 
examining counsel surveys the court to mark a 
point. I felt it about time to intervene on the 
other side. 

“But you looked perfectly happy,” said I, “all 
the autumn?” 

“So I was, God knows!” 

“Everything was all right until you went 
away?” 

“Everything.” 

“Then,” said I, “it looks to me like the mere 
mental effect of influenza, and nothing else.” 

But that was not the sense of the glance I could 
not help shooting at Delavoye. And my explana- 
tion was no comfort to Guy Berridge; he had 
thought of it before; but then he had never felt 
better than the last few days in the country, yet 
never had he been in such despair. 

83 


Witching Hill 

“I can’t go through with it,” he groaned in 
abject unreserve. “It’s making my life a hell — - 
a living lie. I don’t know how to bear it — from 
one meeting to the next — I dread them so! Yet 
I’ve always a sort of hope that next time every- 
thing will suddenly become as it was before Christ- 
mas. Talk of forlorn hopes! Each time’s worse 
than the last. I’ve come straight from her now. 
I don’t know what you must think of me! It’s 
not ten minutes since we said good-night.” The 
big moustache trembled. “I felt a Judas,” he 
whispered — “an absolute Judas!” 

“I believe it’s all nerves,” said Delavoye, but 
with so little conviction that I loudly echoed the 
belief. 

“But I don’t go in for nerves,” protested Ber- 
ridge; “none of us do, in our family. We don’t 
believe in them. We think they’re a modern ex- 
cuse for anything you like to do or say; that’s 
what we think about nerves. I’m not going to 
start them just to make myself out better than 
I am. It’s my heart that’s rotten, not my 
nerves.” 

“I admire your attitude,” said Delavoye, “but 
I don’t agree with you. It’ll all come back to you 
in the end — everything you think you’ve lost — 
84 


A Vicious Circle 

and then you’ll feel as though you’d awakened 
from a bad dream.” 

“But sometimes I do wake up, as it is!” cried 
Berridge, catching at the idea. “Nearly every 
morning, when I’m dressing, things look different. 
I feel my old self again — the luckiest fellow alive 
— engaged to the sweetest girl! She’s always that, 
you know; don’t imagine for one moment that I 
ever think less of Edith; she always was and 
would be a million times too good for me. If 
only she’d see it for herself, and chuck me up of 
her own accord! I’ve even tried to tell her what 
I feel; but she won’t meet me half-way; the real 
truth never seems to enter her head. How to tell 
her outright I don’t know. It would have been 
easy enough last year, when her people wouldn’t 
let us be properly engaged. But they gave in at 
Christmas when I had my rise in screw; and now 
she’s got her ring, and given me this one — how 
on earth can I go and give it her back?” 

“May I see?” asked Delavoye, holding out his 
hand; and I for one was grateful to him for the 
diversion of the few seconds we spent inspecting 
an old enamelled ring with a white peacock on a 
crimson ground. Berridge asked us if we thought 
it a very peculiar ring, as they all did at Beryl- 
stow, and he babbled on about the circumstances 

85 


Witching Hill 

of its purchase by his dear, sweet open-handed 
Edith. It did him good to talk. A tinge of health 
returned to his cadaverous cheeks, and for a time 
his moustache looked less out of keeping and pro- 
portion. 

But it was the mere reactionary surcease of 
prolonged pain, and the fit came on again in ug- 
lier guise before he left. 

“It isn't so much that I don’t want to marry 
her,” declared the accountant with startling ab- 
ruptness, “as the awful thoughts I have as to 
what may happen if I do. They’re too awful to 
describe, even to you two fellows. Of course noth- 
ing could make you think worse of me than you 
must already, but you’d say I was mad if you 
could see inside my horrible mind. I don’t think 
she’d be safe; honestly I don’t! I feel as if I 
might do her some injury — or — or violence!” 

He was swaying about the room with wild eyes 
staring from one to the other of us and twitching 
fingers feeling in his pockets. I got up myself and 
stood within reach of him, for now I felt certain 
that love or illness had turned his brain. But it 
was only a very small scrap of paper that he fished 
out of his waistcoat pocket, and handed first to 
Delavoye and then to me. 

“I cut it out of a review of such a peculiar 

86 


A Vicious Circle 

poem in my evening paper,” said Berridge. “I 
never read reviews, or poems, but those lines hit 
me hard.” 

And I read: 

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves. 

By each let this be heard, 

Some do it with a bitter look. 

Some with a flattering word, 

The coward does it with a kiss, 

The brave man with a sword!” 

“But you don’t feel like that!” said Delavoye, 
laughing at him; and the laughter rang as false 
as his earlier consolation; but this time I had not 
the presence of mind to supplement it. 

Guy Berridge nodded violently as he held out 
his hand for the verse. I could see that his eyes 
had filled with tears. But Uvo rolled the scrap 
of paper into a pellet, which he flung among the 
lumps of asbestos glowing in his grate, and took 
the outstretched hand in his. I never saw man 
so gentle with another. Hardly a word more 
passed. But the poor devil squeezed my fingers 
before Uvo led him out to see him home. And 
it was many minutes before he returned. 

“I have had a time of it!” said he, putting his 
feet to the gas fire. “Not with that poor old 
87 


Witching Hill 

thing, but his people, all three of them! I got 
him up straight to bed, and then they kept me 
when he thought I’d gone. Of course they know 
there’s something wrong, and of course they blame 
the girl; one knew they would. It seems they’ve 
never really approved of her; she’s a shocking in- 
stance of all-round peculiarity. They little know 
the apple of their own blind eyes — eh, Gilly?” 

“I hardly knew him myself,” said I. ‘‘He must 
be daft! I never thought to hear a grown man 
go on like that.” 

“And such a man!” cried Uvo. “It’s not the 
talk so much as the talker that surprises me; and 
by the way, how well he talked, for him! He was 
less of a bore than I’ve ever known him; there 
was passion in the fellow, confound him! Red 
blood in that lump of road metal! He’s not only 
sorry for himself. He’s simply heart-broken about 
the girl. But this maggot of morbid introspec- 
tion has got into his brain and — how did it get 
there, Gilly? It’s no place for the little brute. 
What brain is there to feed it? What has he ever 
done, in all his dull days, to make that harmless 
mind a breeding-ground for every sort of degen- 
erate idea ? In mine they’d grow like mustard and 
cress. I’d feel just like that if I were engaged to 
88 


A Vicious Circle 

the very nicest girl; the nicer she was, the worse 
I’d get; but then I’m a degenerate dog in any 
case. Oh, yes, I am, Gilly. But here’s as faith- 
ful a hound as ever licked his lady’s hand. Where’s 
he got it from? Who’s the poisoner?” 

“I’m glad you ask,” said I. “I was afraid 
you’d say you knew.” 

“ Meaning my old man of the soil?” 

“I made sure you’d put it on him.” 

Uvo laughed heartily. 

“You don’t know as much about him as I do, 
Gilly! He was the last old scoundrel to worry 
because he didn’t love a woman as much as she 
deserved. It was quite the other way about, I 
can assure you.” 

“Yes; but what about those almost murderous 
inclinations?” 

“I thought of them. But they only came on 
after our good friend had shaken this demor- 
alising dust off his feet. As long as he stuck to 
Witching Hill he was as sound as a marriage 
bell! It’s dead against my doctrine, Gillon, but 
I’m delighted to find that you share my disap- 
pointment.” 

“And I to hear you own it is one, Uvo!” 

“There’s another thing, now we’re on the sub- 

89 


Witching Hill 

ject,” he continued, for we had not been on it 
for weeks and months. “It seems that over at 
Hampton Court there’s a portrait of my ignoble 
kinsman, by one Kneller. I only heard of it the 
other day, and I was rather wondering if you 
could get away to spin over with me and look him 
up. It needn’t necessarily involve contentious 
topics, and we might lunch at the Mitre in that 
window looking down-stream. But it ought to 
be to-morrow, if you could manage it, because the 
galleries don’t open on Friday, and on Saturdays 
they’re always crowded.” 

I could not manage it very well. I was sup- 
posed to spend my day on the Estate, and, though 
there was little doing thus early in the year, it 
might be the end of me if my Mr. Muskett came 
back before his usual time and did not find me at 
my post. And I was no longer indifferent as to 
the length of my days at Witching Hill. But I 
resolved to risk them for the man who had made 
the place what it was to me — a garden of friends 
— however otherwise he might people and spoil it 
for himself. 

We started at my luncheon hour, which could 
not in any case count against me, and quite early 
in the afternoon we reckoned to be back. It was 
90 


A Vicious Circle 

a very keen bright day, worthier of General Jan- 
uary than his chief-of-staff. Ruts and puddles 
were firmly frozen; our bicycle bells rang out with 
a pleasing brilliance. In Bushey Park the black 
chestnuts stamped their filigree tops against a 
windless radiance. Under the trees a russet car- 
pet still waited for March winds to take it up. 
The Diana pond was skinned with ice; goddess 
and golden nymphs caught every scintillation of 
cold sunlight as we trundled past. In a fine glow 
we entered the palace and climbed to the grim old 
galleries. 

“Talk about haunted houses!” said Uvo Dela- 
voye. “If our patron sinner takes such a fatherly 
interest in the humble material at his disposal, 
what about that gay dog Henry and the good la- 
dies in these apartments? I should be sorry to 
trust living neck to what’s left of the old lady- 
killer.” It was the famous Holbein which had set 
him off. “But I say, Gilly, here’s a far worse face 
than his. It may be my rude forefather; by Jove, 
and so it is!” 

And he took off his cap with unction to a hand- 
some, sinister creature, in a brown flowing wig 
and raiment as fine as any on the walls. There 
was a staggering peacock-blue surtout, lined with 
9i 


Witching Hill 

silk of an orange scarlet, the wide sleeves turned 
up with the same; and a creamy cascade of lace 
fell from the throat over a long cinnamon waist- 
coat piped with silk; for you could swear to the 
material at sight, and the colours might have been 
laid on that week. They lit up the gloomy cham- 
ber, and the eyes in the periwigged head lit them 
up. The dark eyes at my side were not more live 
and liquid than the painted pair. Not that Uvo’s 
were cynical, voluptuous, or sly; but like these 
they reminded me of deep waters hidden from the 
sun. I refrained from comment on a resemblance 
that went no further. I was glad I alone had seen 
how far it went. 

“Thank goodness those lips and nostrils don’t 
sprout on our branch!” Uvo had put up his eye- 
brows in a humorous way of his. “We must keep 
a weather eye open for the evil that they did liv- 
ing after them on Witching Hill! You may well 
stare at his hands; they probably weren’t his at 
all, but done from a model. I hope the old Turk 
hadn’t quite such a ladylike ” 

He stopped short, as I knew he would when he 
saw what I was pointing out to him; for I had 
not been staring at the effeminate hand affectedly 
composed on the corner of a table, but at the en- 
92 


A Vicious Circle 

amelled ring painted like a miniature on the little 
finger. 

“Good Lord!” cried Delavoye. “That’s the 
very ring we saw last night!” 

It was at least a perfect counterfeit; the narrow 
stem, the high, projecting, oval bezel — the white 
peacock enamelled on a crimson ground — one and 
all were there, as the painters of that period loved 
to put such things in. 

“It must be the same, Gilly! There couldn’t 
be two such utter oddities!” 

“It looks like it, certainly; but how did Miss 
Hemming get hold of it?” 

“Easily enough; she ferrets out all the old curi- 
osity shops in the district, and didn’t Berridge tell 
us she bought his ring in one? Obviously it’s been 
lying there for the last century and a bit. Bear 
in mind that this bad old lot wasn’t worth a bob 
toward the end; then you must see the whole 
thing’s so plain, there’s only one thing plainer.” 

“What’s that?” 

“The entire cause and origin of Guy Berridge’s 
pangs and fears about his engagement. He never 
had one or the other before Christmas — when he 
got his ring. They’ve made his life a Hades ever 
since, every day of it and every hour of every day, 
93 


Witching Hill 

except sometimes in the morning when he was get- 
ting up. Why not then? Because he took off his 
ring when he went to his bath! Fll go so far as 
to remind you that his only calm and rational mo- 
ments last night were while you and I were look- 
ing at this ring and it was off his finger!” 

Delavoye’s strong excitement was attracting the 
attention of the old soldierly attendant near the 
window, and in a vague way that veteran attracted 
mine. I glanced past him, out and down into the 
formal grounds. Yew and cedar seemed unreal to 
me in the wintry sunlight; almost I wondered 
whether I was dreaming in my turn, and where 
on earth I was. It was as though a touch of the 
fantastic had rested for a moment even on my 
hard head. But I very soon shook it off, and 
mocked the vanquished weakness with a laugh. 

“Yes, my dear fellow, that’s alt very well. 
But ” 

“None of your blooming ‘buts’!” cried Uvo, 
with almost delirious levity. “I should have 
thought this instance was concrete enough even 
for you. But we’ll talk about it at the Mitre and 
consider what to do.” 

In that talk I joined, into those considerations 
I entered, without arguing at all. It did not com- 
94 



“Good Lord!” cried Delavoye. “That’s the very ring we 

saw last night! ” 


4 

I* C Y©** 

_ ’ 

W:* 




- 
















































A Vicious Circle 

mit me to a single article of a repugnant creed, 
but neither on the other hand did it impair the 
excellence of Delavoye’s company at a hurried 
feast which still stands out in my recollection. I 
remember the long red wall of Hampton Court as 
the one warm feature of the hard-bitten land- 
scape. I remember red wine in our glasses, a tinge 
of colour in the dusky face that leant toward 
mine, and a wondrous flow of eager talk, delight- 
ful as long as one did not take it too seriously. 
My own attitude I recapture most securely in 
Uvo’s accusation that I smiled and smiled and 
was a sceptic. It was one of those characteristic 
remarks that stick for no other reason. Uvo 
Delavoye was not in those days at all widely read; 
but he had a large circle of quotations which were 
not altogether unfamiliar to me, and I eventually 
realised that he knew his Hamlet almost off* by 
heart. 

But as yet poor Berridge’s “ pangs and fears” 
was original Delavoye to my ruder culture; and 
the next time I saw him, on the Friday night, the 
pangs seemed keener and the fears even more 
enervating than before. Again he sat with us in 
Uvo’s room; but he was oftener on his legs, strid- 
ing up and down, muttering and gesticulating as 
95 


Witching Hill 

he strode. In the end Uvo took a strong line with 
him. I was waiting for it. He had conceived the 
scheme at Hampton Court, and I was curious to 
see how it would be received. 

“This can’t go on, Berridge! I’ll see you 
through — to the bitter end!” 

Uvo was not an actor, yet here was a magnifi- 
cent piece of acting, because it was more than half 
sincere. 

“Will you really, Delavoye?” cried the account- 
ant, shrinking a little from his luck. 

“Rather! I’m not going to let you go stark 
mad under my nose. Give me that ring.” 

“My — her — ring?” 

“Of course; it’s your engagement ring, isn’t it? 
And it’s your duty, to yourself and her and every- 
body else, to break off that engagement with as 
little further delay as possible.” 

“But are you sure, Delavoye?” 

“Certain. Give it to me.” 

“It seems such a frightful thing to do!” 

“We’ll see about that. Thank you; now you’re 
your own man again.” 

And now I really did begin to open my eyes; 
for no sooner had the unfortunate accountant 
parted with his ring, than his ebbing affections 
96 


A Vicious Circle 

rushed back in a miraculous flood, and he was 
begging for it again in five minutes, vowing that 
he had been mad but now was sane, and looking 
more himself into the bargain. But Delavoye was 
adamant to these hysterical entreaties. He plied 
Berridge with his own previous arguments against 
the marriage, and once at least he struck a respon- 
sive chord from those frayed nerves. 

“Nobody but yourself/’ he pointed out, “ever 
said you didn’t love her; but see what love makes 
of you! Can you dream of marriage in such a 
state ? Is it fair to the girl, until you’ve really re- 
considered the whole matter and learnt your own 
mind once for all? Could she be happy? Would 
she be — it was your own suggestion — but are you 
sure she would be even safe?” 

Berridge wrung his hands in new despair; yes, 
he had forgotten that! Those awful instincts were 
the one unalterably awful feature. Not that he 
felt them still; but to recollect them as genuine 
impulses, or at best as irresistible thoughts, was 
to freeze his self-distrust into a cureless cancer. 

“I was forgetting all that,” he moaned. “And 
yet here in my pocket is the very book those hope- 
less lines are from. I bought it at Stoneham’s this 
morning. It’s the most peculiar poem I ever read. 
97 


Witching Hill 

I can’t quite make it out. But that bit was clear 
enough. Only hear how it goes on!” 

And in a school-childish sing-song, with no ex- 
pression but that involuntarily imparted by his 
quavering voice, he read twelve lines aloud. 

“Some kill their love when they are young, 

And some when they are old; 

Some strangle with the hands of Lust, 

Some with the hands of Gold: 

The kindest use a knife, because ” 

He shuddered horribly 

“The dead so soon grow cold. 

“Some love too little, some too long, 

Some sell, and others buy; 

Some do the deed with many tears, 

And some without a sigh: 

For each man kills the thing he loves, 

Yet each man does not die.” 


“It’s all I’m fit for, death!” groaned Guy Ber- 
ridge, trying to tug the fierce moustache out of 
his mild face. “The sooner the better for me! 
And yet I did love her, God knows I did!” He 
turned upon Uvo Delavoye in a sudden blaze. 
“And so I do still — do you hear me? Then give 



“ It’s all I’m fit for, death! ” groaned Guy Berridge, trying to 
tug the fierce moustache out of his mild face 




A Vicious Circle 

me back my ring, I say, and don’t encourage me 
in this madness — you — you devil!” 

“Give it him back,” I said. But Uvo set his 
teeth against us both, looking almost what he had 
just been called — looking abominably like that fine 
evil gentleman in Hampton Court — and I could 
stand the whole thing no longer. I rammed my 
own hand into Delavoye’s pocket. And down and 
away out into the night, like a fiend let loose, went 
Guy Berridge and the ring with the peacock enam- 
elled in white on a blood-red ground. 

I turned again to Delavoye. His shoulders were 
up to his ears in wry good humour. 

“You may be right, Gilly, but now I ought 
really to sit up with him all night. In any case 
I shall have it back in the morning, and then 
neither you nor he shall ever see that unclean 
bird again!” 

But he went so far as to show it to me across 
my counter, not many minutes after young Ber- 
ridge had shambled past, with bent head and un- 
shaven cheeks, to catch his usual train next morn- 
ing. 

“I did sit up with him,” said Uvo. “We sat 
up till he dropped off in his chair, and eventually 
I got him to bed more asleep than awake. But 
99 


Witching Hill 

he’s as bad as ever again this morning, and he has 
surrendered the infernal ring this time of his own 
accord. I’m to break matters to the girl by giv- 
ing it back to her.” 

“ You’re a perfect hero to take it on!” 

“I feel much more of a humbug, Gilly.” 

“When do you tackle her?” 

“Never, my dear fellow! Can’t you see the 
point? This white peacock’s at the bottom of the 
whole thing. Neither of them shall ever set eyes 
on it again, and then you see if they don’t marry 
and live happy ever after!” 

“But are you going to throw the thing away?” 

“Not if I can help it, Gilly. I’ll tell you what 
I thought of doing. There’s a little working jew- 
eller, over at Richmond, who made me quite a 
good pin out of some heavy old studs that belonged 
to my father. I’m going to take him this ring to- 
day and see if he can turn out a duplicate for love 
or money.” 

“I’ll go with you,” I said, “if you can wait till 
the afternoon.” 

“We must be gone before Berridge has a chance 
of getting back,” replied Uvo, doubtfully; “other- 
wise I shall have to begin all over again, because 
of course he’ll come back cured and roaring for his 
ioo 


A Vicious Circle 

ring. I haven’t quite decided what to say to him, 
but I fancy my imagination will prove equal to 
the strain.” 

This seemed to me a rather cynical attitude to 
take, even in the best of causes, and it certainly 
was not like Uvo Delavoye. Only too capable, in 
my opinion, of deceiving himself, he was no im- 
postor, if I knew him, and it was disappointing to 
see him take so kindly to the part. I preferred 
not to talk about it on the road to Richmond, 
which we took on foot in the small hours of the 
afternoon. A weeping thaw had reduced the 
frozen ruts to mere mud piping, of that consis- 
tency which grips a tire like teeth. But it was 
impossible not to compare this heavy tramp with 
our sparkling spin through Bushey Park. And 
the hot and cold fits of poor Guy Berridge afforded 
an inevitable analogy. 

“I can’t understand him,” I was saying. “I 
can understand a fellow falling in love, and even 
falling out again. But Berridge flies from one ex- 
treme to the other like a ball in a hard rally.” 

“And it’s not the way he’s built, Gilly! That’s 
what sticks with me. You may be quite sure he’s 
not the first breeder of sinners who began by shiv- 
ering on the brink of matrimony. It’s a desper- 

IOI 


Witching Hill 

ate plunge to take. I should be terrified myself; 
but then Im not one of nature's faithful hounds. 
If it wasn't for the canine fidelity of this good 
Berridge, I shouldn’t mind his thinking and shrink- 
ing like many a better man.” 

We were cutting off the last corner before Rich- 
mond by following the asphalt footpath behind 
St. Stephen's Church. Here we escaped the mud 
at last; the moist asphalt shone with a cleanly 
lustre; and our footsteps threw an echo ahead, 
between the two long walls, until it mixed with 
the tramp of approaching feet, and another couple 
advanced into view. They were man and girl; 
but I did not at first identify the radiant citizen 
in the glossy hat, with his arm thrust through the 
lady's, as Guy Berridge homeward bound with his 
once beloved. It was a groan from Uvo that made 
me look again, and next moment the four of us 
blocked the narrow gangway. 

“The very man we were talking about!” cried 
Berridge without looking at me. His hat had been 
ironed, his weak chin burnished by a barber's 
shave, the strong moustache clipped and curled. 
But a sporadic glow marked either cheek-bone, 
and he had forgotten to return our salute. 

“Yes, Mr. Delavoye!” said Miss Hemming with 
102 


A Vicious Circle 

arch severity. “What have you been doing with 
my white peacock ?” 

She had a brown fringe, very crisply curled as a 
rule; but the damp air had softened and improved 
it; and perhaps her young gentleman’s recovery 
had carried the good work deeper, for she was a 
girl who sometimes gave herself airs, but there 
seemed no room for any in her happy face. 

“To tell you the truth,” replied Uvo, unblush- 
ingly, “I was on my way to show it to a bit of a 
connoisseur at Richmond.” He turned to Ber- 
ridge, who met his glance eagerly. “That’s really 
why I borrowed it, Guy. I believe it’s more valu- 
able than either of you realise.” 

“Not to me!” cried the accountant readily. “I 
don’t know what I was doing to take it off. I hear 
it’s a most unlucky thing to do.” 

It was easy to see from whom he had heard it. 
Miss Hemming said nothing, but looked all the 
more decided with her mouth quite shut. And 
Delavoye addressed his apologies to the proper 
quarter. 

“I’m awfully sorry, Miss Hemming! Of course 
you’re quite right; but I hope you’ll show it to 
my man yourselves ” 

“If you don’t mind,” said Berridge, holding out 
his hand with a smile. 

103 


Witching Hill 

But Uvo had broken off of his own accord. 

“I think you’ll be glad” — he was feeling in all 
his pockets — “ quite glad if you do — ” and his 
voice died away as he began feeling again. 

“Lucky I wired to you to meet me at Richmond, 
wasn’t it, Edie? Otherwise we should have been 
too late,” said the accountant densely. 

“Perhaps you are!” poor Uvo had to cry out- 
right. “I — the fact is I — can’t find it anywhere.” 

“You may have left it behind,” suggested Ber- 
ridge. 

“We can call for it, if you did,” said the girl. 

There was something in his sudden worry that 
appealed to their common fund of generosity. 

“No, no! I told you why I was going to Rich- 
mond. I thought I had it in my ticket pocket. 
In fact, I know I had; but I went with my sister 
this morning to get some flowers at Kingston 
market, and I haven’t had it out since. It’s been 
taken from me, and that was where! I wish you’d 
feel in my pockets for me. I’ve had them picked 
— picked of the one thing that wasn’t mine, and 
was of value — and now you’ll neither of you ever 
forgive me, and I don’t deserve to be forgiven!” 

But they did forgive him, and that handsomely 
— so manifest was his distress — so great their re- 
covered happiness. It was only I who could not 
104 


A Vicious Circle 

follow their example, when they had gone on their 
way, and Delavoye and I were hurrying on ours, 
ostensibly to get the Richmond police to telephone 
at once to Kingston, as the first of all the energetic 
steps that we were going to take. For we were 
still in that asphalt passage, and the couple had 
scarcely quitted it at the other end, when Dela- 
voye drew off* his glove and showed me the miss- 
ing ring upon his little finger. 

I could hardly believe my eyes, or my ears either 
when he roundly defended his conduct. I need not 
go into his defence; it was the only one it could 
have been; but Uvo Delavoye was the only man 
in England who could and would have made it 
with a serious face. It was no mere trinket that 
he had “ lifted, ” but a curse from two innocent 
heads. That end justified any means, to his wild 
thinking. But, over and above the ethical ques- 
tion, he had an inherited responsibility in the mat- 
ter, and had only performed a duty which had been 
thrust upon him. 

“Nor shall they be a bit the worse off,” said 
Uvo warmly. “I still mean to have that dupli- 
cate made, off my own bat, and when I foist it on 
our friends I shall simply say it turned up in the 
lining of my overcoat.” 

105 


Witching Hill 

“Man Uvo,” said I, “ there are two professions 
waiting for you; but it would take a judge of both 
to choose between your fiction and your acting.” 

“Acting!” he cried. “Why, a blog like Guy 
Berridge can act when he’s put to it; he did just 
now, and took you in, evidently! It never struck 
you, I suppose, that he’d wired to me this morn- 
ing to say nothing to the girl, probably at the 
same time that he wired to her to meet him? He 
carried it all off like a born actor just now, and 
yet you curse me for going and doing likewise to 
save the pair of them!” 

It is always futile to try to slay the bee in an- 
other’s bonnet; but for once I broke my rule of 
never arguing with Uvo Delavoye, if I could help 
it, on the particular point involved. I simply 
could not help it, on this occasion; and when 
Uvo lost his temper, and said a great deal more 
than I would have taken from anybody else, I 
would not have helped it if I could. So hot 
had been our interchange that it was at its height 
when we debouched from St. Stephen’s Passage 
into the open cross-roads beyond. 

At that unlucky moment, one small suburban 
arab, in full flight from another, dashed round 
the corner and butted into that part of Delavoye 
106 



With one hand he caught the offending urchin, and in the 
other I was horrified to see his stick, a heavy blackthorn, 
held in murderous poise 





























♦ 
















































A Vicious Circle 

which the Egyptian climate had specially demor- 
alised. I saw his dark face writhe with pain and 
fury. With one hand he caught the offending ur- 
chin, and in the other I was horrified to see his 
stick, a heavy black-thorn, held in murderous 
poise against the leaden sky, while the child was 
thrust out at arm's length to receive the blow. 
I hurled myself between them, and had such dif- 
ficulty in wresting the black-thorn from the mad- 
man's grasp that his hand was bleeding, and some- 
thing had tinkled on the pavement, when I tore 
it from him. 

Panting, I looked to see what had become of the 
small boy. He had taken to his heels as though 
the foul fiend was at them; his late pursuer was 
now his companion in flight, and I was thankful 
to find we had the scene to ourselves. Delavoye 
was pointing to the little thing that had tinkled 
as it fell, and as he pointed the blood dripped from 
his hand, and he shuddered like a man recovering 
from a fit. 

I had better admit plainly that the thing was 
that old ring with the white peacock set in red, 
and that Uvo Delavoye was once more as I had 
known him down to that hour. 

“ Don’t touch the beastly thing!" he cried. 

107 


Witching Hill 

“It’s served me worse than it served poor Ber- 
ridge! I shall have to think of a fresh lie to tell 
him — and it won’t come so easy now — but I’d 
rather cut mine off than trust this on another 
human hand!” 

He picked it up between his finger-nails. And 
there was blood on the white peacock when I saw 
it next on Richmond Bridge. 

“ Don’t you worry about my hand,” said Uvo 
as he glanced up and down the grey old bridge. 
“It’s only a scratch from the black-thorn spikes, 
but I’d have given a finger to be shut of this devil!” 

A flick of his wrist sent the old ring spinning; 
we saw it meet its own reflection in the glassy 
flood, like a salmon-fly beautifully thrown; and 
more rings came and widened on the waters, till 
they stirred the mirrored branches of the trees on 
Richmond Hill. 


108 


The Local Colour 


T HE Reverend Charles Brabazon, magnetic 
Vicar of the adjacent Village, had as strong 
a personality as one could wish to encounter in 
real life. He did what he liked with a congrega- 
tion largely composed of the motley worldlings of 
Witching Hill. Small solicitors and west-end 
tradesmen, bank officials, outside brokers, first- 
class clerks in Government offices, they had not 
a Sunday soul to call their own, these hard-headed 
holders of season tickets to Waterloo. 

Throughout the summer they flocked to church 
when their hearts were on the river; in the depths 
of winter they got up for early celebration on the 
one morning when they might have lain abed. 
Their most obsequious devotions did not temper 
the preacher’s truculence, any more than his 
strongest onslaught discouraged their good works. 
They gave of their substance at his every call, 
and were even more lavish on their own initiative. 
Thus, in my second summer at Witching Hill, the 
Vicarage was practically rebuilt out of the pockets 
of parishioners; and we had no difficulty in pro- 
109 


Witching Hill 

viding a furnished substitute on the favourite 
woodland side of Mulcaster Park. 

Great was the jealousy in Witching Hill Road, 
but futile the fluttering of our Queen Anne dove- 
cots; for we saw very little more of the Vicar for 
having him in our midst. He was always either 
immured in his study, or else hurrying to or from 
some service or parochial engagement; and al- 
though he had a delightful roadside manner, and 
the same fine smile for high and low, he would 
stop to speak to neither on his way. Out of 
church, in fact, Mr. Brabazon preserved a wise 
aloofness which only served to emphasise the fierce 
intimacy of his pulpit utterances, and combined 
with his contempt of popularity to render him by 
far the most popular figure in the neighbourhood. 

It goes without saying that this remarkable man 
was a High Churchman and a celibate. His house 
was kept, and his social shortcomings made good, 
by two Misses Brabazon, each as unlike him as 
possible in her own way. Miss Ruth, who was 
younger, added to her brother’s energy a sym- 
pathetic charm and a really good voice which made 
her the darling of the Parish Hall and humbler 
edifices. Miss Julia’s activities were more seden- 
tary and domestic, as perhaps became the least 
no 


The Local Colour 

juvenile of the trio, and so it was that I saw most 
of her. We had a whole day together over the in- 
ventory, and it was Miss Julia who interviewed me 
about everything else connected with the house. 
She was never short with me on those occasions, 
never ungracious or (what is worse) unduly gra- 
cious, but she had always a pleasant word, and 
nearly always an innocent little joke as well. In- 
nocence and jocosity were two of her leading char- 
acteristics; another was a genuine but ingenuous 
literary faculty. This she exercised in editing the 
Parish Magazine , and supplying it with moral se- 
rials which occasionally reached volume form under 
the auspices of the Religious Tract Society. 

On an evening late in April, when the cuckoo 
was wound up in the wood behind Mulcaster Park, 
and most of the beds in front were flowering for 
the first time, a gaunt figure came to the gate of 
the temporary vicarage and beckoned to me pass- 
ing on the other side of the road. It was Miss 
Julia, and I found her looking gently humorous 
and knowing across the gate. 

“The trees are coming out so beautifully,” she 
began, “in the grounds behind these gardens. I 
was wondering if it would be possible to procure 
a permit to go over them, Mr. Gillon.” 

ill 


Witching Hill 

“Do you mean for yourself, Miss Brabazon?” 

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do.” 

As she spoke I could not but notice that she 
glanced ever so slightly toward the house behind 
her, and that her voice had fallen to a murmur, 
while a mottled colouring appeared between the 
lines of her guileless visage. 

“Im afraid I can’t do anything,” I said. “But 
the Vicar could, Miss Brabazon!” I added with 
conviction. “A line from him to Sir Christopher 
Stainsby ” 

I stopped because Miss Julia shook her head so 
decidedly. 

“That would never do, Mr. Gillon, Sir Chris- 
topher is such a very rabid Dissenter.” 

“So I have heard,” I admitted, thinking rather 
of what I had seen. “ But I don’t believe he’s as 
narrow as you think.” 

“I couldn’t trouble the Vicar about it, in 
any case,” said Miss Brabazon, hurriedly. “I 
shouldn’t even like him to know that I had 
troubled you, Mr. Gillon. He’s such a severe 
critic that I never tell him what I’m writing until 
it’s finished.” 

“Then you are writing something about Witch- 
ing Hill House, Miss Brabazon?” 

1 12 


The Local Colour 

“I was thinking of it. I haven’t begun. But 
I never saw any place that I felt such a desire to 
write about. The old house in the old woods, say 
a hundred years ago! Don’t you think it an ideal 
scene for a story, Mr. Gillon?” 

“It depends on the story you want to tell,” said 
I, sententiously. 

A strange light was burning in the weak eyes of 
Miss Julia. It might almost have been a flicker 
of the divine fire. But now she dropped her worn 
eyelids, and gazed into the road with the dreamy 
cunning of the born creator. 

“I should have quite a plot,” she decided. “It 
would be . . . yes, it would be about some ex- 
traordinary person who lived in there, in the wood 
and the house, only of course ages and ages ago. 
I think I should make him — in fact I’m quite sure 
he would be — a very wicked person, though of 
course he’d have to come all right in the end.” 

“You must be thinking of the man who really 
did live there.” 

“Who was that?” 

“The infamous Lord Mulcaster.” 

“Really, Mr. Gillon? I don’t think I ever 
heard of him. Of course I know the present fam- 
ily by name; aren’t these Delavoyes connected 
with them in some way?” 

ii3 


Witching Hill 

I explained the connection as I knew it, which 
was not very thoroughly. But I unfortunately 
said enough to cause a rapid fall in poor Miss 
Julia’s mottled countenance. 

“Then I must give up the idea of that story. 
They would think I meant their ancestor, and that 
would never do. I’m sorry, because I never felt 
so inclined to write anything before. But I’m very 
glad you told me, Mr. Gillon.” 

“But they wouldn’t mind a bit, Miss Brabazon! 
They’re not in the least sensitive about him,” I 
assured her. 

“I couldn’t think of it,” replied Miss Julia, 
haughtily. “It would be in the very worst of 
taste.” 

“But Uvo would love it. He’s full of the old 
villain. He might help you if you’d let him. He’s 
at the British Museum at this moment, getting 
deeper and deeper into what he calls the family 
mire.” 

“I happen to see him coming down the road,” 
observed Miss Julia, dryly. “I must really beg 
that you will not refer to the subject again, Mr. 
Gillon.” 

But in her voice and manner there was a hesi- 
tating reluctance that emboldened me to use my 
own judgment about that, especially when Uvo 
114 


The Local Colour 

Delavoye (whose mother and sister were keen Bra- 
bazonians) himself introduced the topic on joining 
us, with a gratuitous remark about his “unfilial 
excavations in Bloomsbury/’ 

“I’ve opened up a new lazar-house this very 
day,” he informed us, with shining eyes, when 
Miss Julia had shown an interest in spite of her- 
self. 

“By the way,” I cut in, “don’t you think it 
would all make magnificent material for a novel, 
Uvo?” 

“If you could find anybody to publish it!” he 
answered, laughing. 

“You wouldn’t mind if he was put into a book 
— and the place as well?” 

“7 wouldn’t, if nobody else didn’t! Why? 
Who’s thinking of doing us the honour?” 

Dear Miss Julia coughed and laughed with de- 
licious coyness. My liberty had been condoned. 

“Was it you, Miss Brabazon?” cried Uvo, 
straightening his face with the nerve that never 
failed him at a climax. 

“Well, it was and it wasn’t,” she replied, ex- 
ceeding slyly. “I did think I should like to write 
a little story about Witching Hill House, and put 
in rather a bad character; at least he would begin 

US 


Witching Hill 

by being rather undesirable, perhaps. But I was 
forgetting that the place had been in your family, 
Mr. Delavoye. I certainly never knew, until Mr. 
Gillon told me, that one of the Lords Mulcaster 
had been — er — perhaps — no better than he ought 
to have been.” 

“To put it mildly,” said Delavoye, with smiling 
face and shrieking eyes. “ You may paint the bad 
old hat as black as mine, Miss Brabazon, and still 
turn him out a saint compared with the villain of 
the case I’ve been reading up to-day. So you 
really needn’t worry about anybody’s susceptibili- 
ties. Lay on the local colour inches deep! You 
won’t make the place as red as the old gentleman 
painted it in blood and wine!” 

“Really, Mr. Delavoye!” cried Miss Julia, jo- 
cosely shocked. “You mustn’t forget that my 
story would only appear in our Parish Magazine 
— unless the R. T. S. took it afterward.” 

“My rude forefather in a Religious Tract!” 

“Of course I should quite reform him in the 
end.” 

“You’d have your work cut out, Miss Bra- 
bazon.” 

“I ought to begin with you , you know!” said 
Miss Julia, shaking a facetious finger in Uvo’s face. 

116 


The Local Colour 

“ Im afraid you're rather an irreverent young man, 
and I don?t know what the Vicar would say if he 
heard us.” She threw another deliciously guilty 
glance toward the house. “ But if you really mean 
what you say, and you’re sure Mrs. Delavoye and 
your sister won’t mind either ” 

“Mind!” he interrupted. “Forgive me, Miss 
Brabazon, but how could they be sensitive about 
the last head but five of a branch of the family 
which doesn’t even recognise our existence?” 

“Very well, then! I’ll take you at your word, 
and the — the blood and thunder,” whispered Miss 
Julia, as though they were bad words, “be on your 
own head, Mr. Delavoye!” 

Thereafter, in a quivering silence, Uvo took me 
home with him, and straight up into his own room, 
where he first shut door and window without a 
word. Never since have I heard man laugh quite 
so loud and long as he did then. 

“But you don’t see the point!” he arrogated 
through his tears, because I made rather less noise. 

“What is it, then?” 

“I told you I’d opened up a new sink to-day?” 

“You said something of the sort.” 

“It was a sink of fresh iniquity. I came across 
it in an old collection of trials; it isn’t as much as 
ii 7 


Witching Hill 

mentioned in any memoir of the old reprobate, nor 
yet in the many annals of Witching Hill. Yet he 
once figured in one of the most disgraceful cases on 
record.” 

The case was all that, as Delavoye summed it 
up for my benefit. The arch-villain of the piece 
was of course his scandalous progenitor, aided and 
abetted by a quite unspeakable crew. There was 
a sorely distressed heroine in humble life — a poor 
little milliner from Shoreditch — but because it was 
all too true, there had been no humble hero to 
wreak poetic vengeance on the miscreant. 

“Not a nursery story, I grant you! But there 
were some good touches in the version I struck,” 
said Delavoye, producing his museum note-book. 
“One or two I couldn’t help taking down. ‘In 
obedience to the custom of the times,’ for instance, 
‘the young lord proceeded to perform the grand 
tour; and it is reported that having sailed from 
Naples to Constantinople, he there imbibed so 
great an admiration for the manners of the Turks, 
that on his return to England in 1 766, he caused 
an outlying portion of his family mansion to be 
taken down, and to be rebuilt in the form of a 
harem.’” 

“Rot!” 

118 


The Local Colour 

“ I took it down word for word. I’ve often won- 
dered how the Turkish Pavilion got its name; now 
we know all about it, and why it had a tunnel con- 
necting it with the house.” 

“Poor little milliner!” 

“ I believe you, Gilly. Listen to this, when she 
was a prisoner in his town-house, before they spir- 
ited her out here. — ‘Looking out of the window at 
about eight o’clock, she observed a young woman 
passing, to whom she threw out her handkerchief, 
which was then heavy with tears, intending to at- 
tract her attention and send to her father for as- 
sistance.’” 

“Because the handkerchief was marked?” 

“And so heavy with her tears that she could 
throw it like a tennis-ball!” 

The note-book was put away. There was an 
end also of our hilarity. 

“And this dear old girl,” said Uvo, with affec- 
tionate disrespect, “thinks she’s a fit and proper 
writer to cope with that immortal skunk! False 
Sextus in a parish magazine! Proud Tarquin done 
really proud at last!” 

It was on the tip of my tongue to make it quite 
clear to Uvo that Miss Julia had not wittingly 
proposed to write about his ancestor at all; that 
119 


Witching Hill 

apparently she had never heard of his existence 
before that evening, and that it was her own origi- 
nal idea to make Witching Hill House the haunt of 
some purely imaginary scoundrel. But I knew my 
Uvo well enough by this time to hold my tongue, 
and at least postpone the tiresome discussion of a 
rather stale point on which we were never likely 
to agree. 

But I stayed to supper at No. 7; and Uvo kept 
me till the small hours, listening to further details 
of his last researches, and to the farrago of acute 
conjecture, gay reminiscence and vivid hearsay 
which his reading invariably inspired. It was base 
subject-metal that did not gain a certain bright 
refinement in his fiery mind, or fall from his lips 
with a lively ring; and that night he was at his 
best about things which have an opposite effect on 
many young men. It must have been after one 
when I left him. I saw the light go out behind 
the cheap stained glass in the front door, and I 
heard Uvo going up-stairs as I departed. The next 
and only other light I passed, in the houses on that 
side of the road, was at the top of the one which 
was now the Vicarage. Thence also came an only 
sound; it was the continuous crackle of a type- 
writer, through the open window of the room 


120 


The Local Colour 

which I knew Miss Julia had appropriated as her 
own. 

That end of the Estate had by this time a full 
team of tenants, whereas I had two sets of paint- 
ers and paper-hangers to keep up to the mark in 
Witching Hill Road. This rather came between 
me and my friends in Mulcaster Park, especially 
as my Mr. Muskett lived in their road, and his 
house had eyes and a tongue. So it happened 
that I saw no more of Miss Julia Brabazon until 
she paid me a queer little visit at my office one 
afternoon about five o’clock. She was out of 
breath, and her flurried manner quickened my ear 
to the sound of her brother’s bells ringing in the 
distance for week-day even-song. 

“I thought I’d like to have one word with you, 
Mr. Gillon, about my story,” she panted, with a 
guilty shrinking from the sheet of glass behind her. 
“It will be finished in a few days now, I’m thank- 
ful to say. I’ve been so hard at work upon it, you 
can’t think!” 

“Oh, yes, I can,” said I; for there seemed to be 
many more lines on the simple, eager countenance; 
the drollery had gone out of it, and its heightened 
colouring had an unhealthy, bluish tinge. 

“I’m afraid I have been burning the midnight 
121 


Witching Hill 

oil a little,” she admitted with a sort of coy bra- 
vado. “But there seems so much to do during the 
day, and everything is so quiet at night, unless it’s 
that wretched typewriter of mine! But I muffle 
the bell, and luckily my brother and sister are 
sound sleepers.” 

“You must be keen, Miss Brabazon, to turn 
night into day.” 

“Keen? I never enjoyed writing half so much. 
It’s no effort; the story simply writes itself. I 
don’t feel as if it were a story at all, but some- 
thing that I see and hear and have just got to 
get down as fast as ever I can! I feel as if I really 
knew that old monster we were talking about the 
other day. Sometimes he quite frightens me. 
And that’s why I’ve come to you, Mr. Gillon. I 
almost fear I’m making him too great a horror 
after all!” 

It was impossible not to smile. “That would 
be a difficult matter, from all I hear, Miss Bra- 
bazon.” 

“I meant from the point of view of his descen- 
dants in general, and these dear Delavoyes in par- 
ticular. Rather than hurt their feelings, Mr. Gil- 
lon, I need hardly tell you I’d destroy my story in 
a minute.” 


122 


The Local Colour 

“That would be a thousand pities,” said I, hon- 
estly thinking of her wasted time. 

“I’m not so sure,” said Miss Julia, doubtfully. 
“I sometimes think, when I read the newspapers, 
that there are bad people enough in the world 
without digging up more from their graves. Yet 
at other times I don’t feel as if I were doing that 
either. It’s more as though this wicked old wretch 
had come to life of his own accord and insisted on 
being written about. I seem to feel him almost 
at my elbow, forcing me to write down I don’t 
know what.” 

“But that sounds like inspiration!” I exclaimed, 
impressed by the good faith patent in the tired, 
ingenuous, serio-comic face. 

“ I don’t know what it is,” replied Miss Julia, “ or 
whether I’m writing sense or nonsense. I never 
like to look next day. I only know that at the 
time I quite frighten myself and — make as big a 
fool of myself as though I were in my poor heroine’s 
shoes — which is so absurd!” She laughed unea- 
sily, her colour slightly heightened. “ But I only 
meant to ask you, Mr. Gillon, whether you hon- 
estly and truly think that the Delavoyes won’t 
mind? You see, he really was their ancestor, and 
I do make him a most odious creature.” 

“But I don’t suppose you give his real name?” 

123 


Witching Hill 

“Oh, dear, no. That would never do. I call 
him the Duke of Doehampton, and the story is 
called ‘His Graceless Grace/ Isn’t it a good title, 
Mr. Gillon?” 

I lied like a man, but was still honest enough 
to add that I thought it even better as a disguise. 
“I feel sure, Miss Brabazon, that you are worry- 
ing yourself unnecessarily,” I took it upon myself 
to assert; but indeed her title alone would have 
reassured me, had I for a moment shared her con- 
scientious qualms. 

“I am so glad you think so,” said Miss Julia, 
visibly relieved. “Still, I shall not offer the story 
anywhere until Mr. Delavoye has seen or heard 
every word of it.” 

“I thought it was for your own Parish Maga- 
zine?” 

Miss Julia at last obliged me with her most fa- 
cetious and most confidential smile. 

“I am not tied down to the Parish Magazine” 
said she. “There are higher fields. I am not 
certain that ‘His Graceless Grace’ is altogether 
suited to the young — the young parishioner, Mr. 
Gillon! I must read it over and see. And — yes 
— I shall invite Mr. Delavoye to come and hear it, 
before I decide to send it anywhere at all.” 

The reading actually took place on an evening 
124 


The Local Colour 

in May, when the Vicar had accompanied his 
younger sister up to Exeter Hall; and at the last 
moment I also received a verbal invitation, deliv- 
ered and inspired by that rascal Uvo, who declared 
that I had let him in for the infliction and must 
bear my share. More justly he argued that the 
pair of us might succeed in keeping each other 
awake, whereas one alone would infallibly disgrace 
himself; and we had solemnly agreed upon a sys- 
tem of watch-and-watch, by the alternate quarter- 
of-an-hour, before we presented ourselves at the 
temporary vicarage after supper. 

Miss Julia received us in stiff silk that supplied 
a sort of sibilant obbligato to a nervous welcome; 
and her voice maintained a secretive pitch, even 
when the maid had served coffee and shut the door 
behind her, lending a surreptitious air to the pro- 
ceedings before they could be said to have begun. 
It was impossible not to wonder what the Vicar 
would have said to see his elderly sister discours- 
ing profane fiction to a pair of heathens who sel- 
dom set foot inside his church. 

He would scarcely have listened with our resig- 
nation; for poor Miss Julia read as badly as she 
wrote, and never was story opened with clumsier 
ineptitude than hers. We had sheet upon type- 

125 


Witching Hill 

written sheet about the early life and virtuous vi- 
cissitudes of some deplorably dull young female in 
the east end of London; and in my case slumber 
was imminent when the noble villain made his en- 
try in the cinnamon waistcoat of the picture at 
Hampton Court. At that I tried to catch Uvo’s 
eye, but it was already fixed upon the reader’s 
face with an intensity which soon attracted her 
attention. 

“Isn’t that your idea of him, Mr. Delavoye?” 
asked Miss Julia, apprehensively. 

“Well, yes, it is; but it was Sir Godfrey Kneller’s 
first,” said Uvo, laughing. “So you took the 
trouble to go all the way over there to study his 
portrait, Miss Brabazon?” 

“What portrait? All the way over where, Mr. 
Delavoye?” 

Uvo entered into particulars which left the lady’s 
face a convincing blank. She had seen no por- 
trait; it was years since she had been through the 
galleries at Hampton Court, and then without a 
catalogue. Uvo seemed to experience so much dif- 
ficulty in crediting this disclaimer, that I asked 
whether cinnamon had not been a favourite colour 
with the bloods of the eighteenth century. On his 
assent the reading proceeded in a slightly altered 
126 


The Local Colour 

voice, in which I thought I detected a note of not 
unnatural umbrage. 

But far greater coincidences were in store, and 
those of such a character that it was certainly dif- 
ficult to believe that they were anything of the sort. 
Considered as an attempt at dramatic narrative, 
the story was, of course, beneath criticism. It was 
all redundant description, gratuitous explanations, 
facetious turns to serious sentences, and declared 
intentions which entirely spoilt the effect of their 
due fulfilment. Bored to extinction with the hero- 
ine, who only became interesting on the villain’s 
advent, as his predestined prey, we thenceforth 
heard no more of her until his antecedents had 
been set forth in solid slabs of the pluperfect tense. 
These dwelt with stolid solemnity upon the dis- 
tinctions and debaucheries of his University ca- 
reer, and then all at once on the effect of subse- 
quent travel upon a cynical yet impressionable 
mind. In an instant both of us were attending, 
and even I guessed what was coming, and what had 
happened. Probably by half-forgotten hearsay, 
our dear good lady had tapped the same muddy 
stream as Uvo Delavoye, and some of the mud 
had silted into a mind too innocent to appreciate 
its quality. 


12 7 


Witching Hill 

“ Debased and degraded by the wicked splen- 
dours of barbaric courts, the unprincipled young 
nobleman had decided not only to ‘do in Turkey 
as the Turkeys did,’ but to initiate the heathen 
institution of polygamy among his own broad acres 
on his return to England, home, and only too much 
beauty! . . . Poor, innocent, confiding Millicent; 
little did she dream, when he asked her to be his, 
that he only meant ‘one of the many’; that the 
place awaiting her was but her niche in the seraglio 
which he had wickedly had built, in a corner of his 
stately grounds, on some Eastern model.” 

Delavoye looked at me without a trace of amuse- 
ment, but rather in alarmed recognition of the 
weirdly sustained parallel between rascal fact and 
foolish fiction. But as yet we had only scratched 
the thin ice of the situation; soon we were almost 
shuddering from our knowledge of the depths 
below. 

The unhappy heroine had repulsed the advances 
of the villain in the story as in the actual case; in 
both she was from the same locality (where, how- 
ever, our Vicar had held his last curacy); in both, 
enticed into his lordship’s coach and driven off at 
a great rate to his London mansion, where the 
first phase of her harrowing adventures ensued. 

128 


The Local Colour 

So innocently were these described that we must 
have roared over them by ourselves; but there 
was no temptation to smile under the rosy droll 
nose of poor Miss Julia, by this time warmed to 
her work, and reeling off* her own interminable 
periods with pathetic zest. Yet even her jocose 
and sidelong style could no longer conceal an in- 
terest which had become more dramatic than she 
was aware. Just as it first had taken charge of her 
pen, so her story had now gained undisputed com- 
mand of the poor lady’s lips; and she was actu- 
ally reading it far better than at first, as if sub- 
consciously stimulated by our rapt attention, 
though mercifully ignorant of its uncomfortable 
quality. I speak only for myself, and it may be 
that as a very young man I took the whole busi- 
ness more seriously than I should to-day. But I 
must own there were some beads upon my fore- 
head when Delavoye relieved the tension by jump- 
ing to his feet in unrestrained excitement. 

“I’m glad you like that,” said Miss Julia, with 
a pleased smile, “ because I thought it was good 
myself. Her handkerchief would have her name 
on it, you see; and she was able to throw it out 
of the window like a stone, at the feet of the first 
passer-by, because it was so heavy with her tears. 

129 


Witching Hill 

Of course she hoped the person who picked it up 
would see the name and ” 

“Of course !” cried Uvo, cavalierly. “It was 
an excellent idea — I always thought so.” 

Miss Julia eyed him with a puzzled smirk. 

“How could you always think a thing Fve only 
just invented?” she asked acutely. 

“Well, you see, it’s happened in real life before 
to-day,” he faltered, seeing his mistake. 

“Like a good deal of my story, it appears?” 

“Like something in every story that was ever 
written. Truth, you know ” 

“Quite so, Mr. Delavoye! But I saw you look- 
ing at Mr. Gillon a minute ago as though some- 
thing else was familiar to you both. And I should 
just like to know what it was.” 

“I’m sure I’ve forgotten, Miss Brabazon.” 

It wasn’t the part about the — the Turkish 
building in the grounds — I suppose?” 

“Yes,” said Uvo, turning honest in desperation. 

“And where am I supposed to have read about 
that?” 

“I’m quite certain you never read it at all, 
Miss Brabazon!” 

Now Miss Julia had lost neither her temper nor 
her smile, and she had not been more severe on 
130 


The Local Colour 

Delavoye than his unsatisfactory manner invited. 
But the obvious sincerity of his last answer ap- 
peased her pique, and she leaned forward in sud- 
den curiosity. 

“Then there is a book about him, Mr. Dela- 
voye ? ” 

“Not exactly a book.’’ 

“I know!” she cried. “It’s the case you’d been 
reading the other night — isn’t it?” 

“Perhaps it is.” 

“Was he actually tried — that Lord Mulcaster?” 

The wretched Uvo groaned and nodded. 

“What for, Mr. Delavoye?” 

“His life!” exclaimed Uvo, moistening his lips. 
Miss Julia beamed and puckered with excite- 
ment. 

“How very dreadful, to be sure! And had he 
actually committed a murder?” 

“I’ve no doubt he had,” said Uvo, eagerly. “I 
wouldn’t put anything past him, as they say; but 
in those days it wasn’t necessary to take life in 
order to forfeit your own. There were lots of 
other capital offences. The mere kidnapping of 
the young lady, exactly as you describe it ” 

“But did he really do such a thing?” demanded 
Miss Julia. 


Witching Hill 

And her obviously genuine amazement redoub- 
led mine. 

“ Exactly as you have described it,” repeated 
Delavoye. “He travelled in the East, commenced 
Bluebeard on his return, fished his Fatima like 
yours out of some little shop down Shoreditch way, 
and even drove her to your own expedient of turn- 
ing her tears to account!” 

And he dared to give me another look — shot 
with triumph — while Miss Julia supported an in- 
vidious position as best she might. 

“Wait a bit!” said I, stepping in at last. “I 
thought I gathered from you the other day, Miss 
Brabazon, that you felt the reality of your story 
intensely?” 

“I did indeed, Mr. Gillon ” 

“It distressed you very much?” 

“I might have been going through the whole 
thing.” 

“It — it even moved you to tears?” 

“I should be ashamed to say how many.” 

“I dare say,” I pursued, smiling with all my 
might, “that even your handkerchief was heavy 
with them, Miss Brabazon?” 

“It was!” 

“Then so much for the origin of that idea! It 
132 


The Local Colour 

would have occurred to anybody under similar cir- 
cumstances/’ 

Miss Julia gave me the smile I wanted. I felt 
I had gone up in her estimation, and sent Dela- 
voye down. But I had reckoned without his ge- 
nius for taking a dilemma by the horns. 

“This is an old quarrel between Gillon and me, 
Miss Brabazon. I hold that all Witching Hill is 
more or less influenced by the wicked old wizard 
of the place. Mr. Gillon says it’s all my eye, and 
simply will not let belief take hold of him. Yet 
your Turkish building actually existed within a few 
feet of where we’re sitting now; and suppose the 
very leaves on the trees still whisper about it to 
those who have ears to hear; suppose you’ve taken 
the whole thing down almost at dictation ! I don’t 
know how your story goes on, Miss Brabazon ” 

“No more do I,” said Miss Brabazon, mani- 
festly impressed and not at all offended by his 
theory. “It’s a queer thing — I never should have 
thought of such a thing myself — but I certainly 
did dash it all off as if somebody was telling me 
what to say, and at such a rate that my mind’s 
still a blank from one page to the next.” 

She picked the script out of her lap, and we 
watched her bewildered face as it puckered to a 
frown over the rustling sheets. 

133 


Witching Hill 

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Delavoye a little 
hastily, “if his next effort wasn’t to subvert her 
religious beliefs.” 

“To make game of them!” assented Miss Ju- 
lia in scandalised undertones. “‘The demoniacal 
Duke now set himself to deface and destroy the 
beauty of holiness, to cast away the armour of 
light, and to put upon him the true colours of an 
aristocratic atheist of the deepest dye.’” 

“Exactly what he did,” murmured Uvo, with 
another look at me. It was not a look of tri- 
umph unalloyed; it was at least as full of vivid 
apprehension. 

“I shall cross that out,” said Miss Julia de- 
cidedly. “I don’t know what I was thinking of 
to write anything like that. It really makes me 
almost afraid to go on.” 

Uvo shot out a prompt and eager hand. 

“Will you let me take it away to finish by my- 
self, Miss Brabazon?” 

“I don’t think I can. I must look and see if 
there’s anything more like that.” 

“ But it isn’t your fault if there is. You’ve sim- 
ply been inspired to write the truth.” 

“But I feel almost ashamed.” 

And the type-written sheets rustled more than 
ever as she raised them once more. But Dela- 
134 


The Local Colour 

voye jumped up and stood over her with a stiff 
lip. 

“Miss Brabazon, you really must let me read 
the rest of it to myself!” 

“I must see first whether I can let anybody.” 

“Let me see instead!” 

Heaven knows how she construed his wheedling 
eagerness! There was a moment when they both 
had hold of the MS., when I felt that my friend 
was going too far, that his obstinate persistence 
could not fail to be resented as a liberty. But it 
was just at such moments that there was a smack 
of greatness about Uvo Delavoye; given the stim- 
ulus, he could carry a thing off with a high hand 
and the light touch of a born leader; and so it 
must have been that he had Miss Julia coyly gig- 
gling when I fully expected her to stamp her foot. 

“You talk about our curiosity,” she rallied him. 
“You men are just as bad!” 

“I have a right to be curious,” returned Uvo, in 
a tone that surprised me as much as hers. “You 
forget that your villain was once the head of our 
clan, and that so far the fact is quite unmistakable.” 

“But that’s just what I can’t understand!” 

“Yet the fact remains, Miss Brabazon, and I 
think it ought to count.” 

135 


Witching Hill 

“My dear young man, that’s my only excuse 
for this very infliction!” cried Miss Julia, with in- 
vincible jocosity. “If you’d rather it were de- 
stroyed, I shall be quite ready to destroy it, as 
Mr. Gillon knows. But I should like you to hear 
the whole of it first.” 

“And I could judge so much better if I read the 
rest to myself!” 

And still he held his corner of the MS., and she 
hers with an equal tenacity, which I believe to 
have been partly reflex and instinctive, but other- 
wise due to the discovery that she had written 
quite serenely about a blasphemer and an atheist, 
and not for a moment to any other qualm or ap- 
prehension whatsoever. And then as I watched 
them their eyes looked past me with one accord; 
the sheaf of fastened sheets fluttered to the ground 
between them; and I turned to behold the Vicar 
standing grim and gaunt upon the threshold, with 
a much younger and still more scandalised face 
peeping over his shoulder. 

“I didn’t know that you were entertaining com- 
pany,” observed the Vicar, bowing coldly to us 
youths. “Are you aware that it’s nearly mid- 
night?” 

Miss Julia said she never could have believed 
136 


The Local Colour 

it, but that she must have lost all sense of time, 
as she had been reading something to us. 

“ I’m sure that was very kind, and has been much 
appreciated,” said the Vicar, with his polar smile. 
“I suppose this was what you were reading?” 

And he was swooping down on the MS., but 
Delavoye was quicker; and quicker yet than either 
hand was the foot interposed like lightning by the 
Vicar. 

“ You’ll allow me?” he said, and so picked the 
crumpled sheets from under it. Uvo bowed, and 
the other returned the courtesy with ironic in- 
terest. 

In quivering tones Miss Julia began: “It’s only 
something I’ve been ” 

“Considering for the Parish Magazine ,” ejacu- 
lated Uvo. “Miss Brabazon did me the honour 
of consulting me about it.” 

“And may I ask your responsibility for the Par- 
ish Magazine , Mr. Delavoye?” 

“It’s a story,” continued Uvo, ignoring the 
question and looking hard at Miss Julia — “a local 
story, evidently written for local publication, the 
scene being laid here at Witching Hill House. 
The principal character is the very black sheep of 
my family who once lived there.” 

137 


Witching Hill 

“I’m aware of the relationship,” said the Vicar, 
dryly unimpressed. 

“It’s not one that we boast about; hence Miss 
Brabazon’s kindness in trying to ascertain whether 
my people or I were likely to object to its publica- 
tion.” 

“Well,” said the Vicar, “I’m quite sure that 
neither you nor your people would have any ob- 
jection to Miss Brabazon’s getting to bed by mid- 
night.” 

He returned to the door, which he held wide 
open with urbane frigidity. “Now, Julia, if you’ll 
set us an example.” 

And at the door he remained when the bewil- 
dered lady, delivered from an embarrassment that 
she could not appreciate, and committed to a sub- 
terfuge in which she could see no point, had flown 
none the less readily, with a hectic simper and a 
whistle of silk. 

“Now, gentlemen,” continued the Vicar, “it’s 
nearly midnight, as I’ve said more than once.” 

“I was to take the story with me, to finish it by 
myself,” explained Uvo, with the smile of a bud- 
ding ambassador. 

“Oh, very well,” rejoined the Vicar, shutting 
the door. “Then we must keep each other a min- 
138 


The Local Colour 

ute longer. I happen myself to constitute the final 
court of appeal in all matters connected with the 
Parish Magazine. Moreover, Mr. Delavoye, I’m 
a little curious to see the kind of composition that 
merits a midnight discussion between my sister and 
two young men whose acquaintance I myself have 
had so little opportunity of cultivating.” 

He dropped into a chair, merely waving to us to 
do the same; and Delavoye did; but I remained 
standing, with my eyes on the reader's face, and I 
saw him begin where Miss Julia had left off and 
the MS. had fallen open. I could not be mis- 
taken about that; there was the mark of his own 
boot upon the page; but the Vicar read it with- 
out wincing at the passage which his sister had 
declared her intention of crossing out. His brows 
took a supercilious lift; his cold eyes may have 
grown a little harder as they read; and yet once 
or twice they lightened with a human relish — an 
icy twinkle — a gleam at least of something I had 
not thought to see in Mr. Brabazon. Perhaps I did 
not really see it now. If you look long enough at 
the Sphinx itself, in the end it will yield some sem- 
blance of an answering look. And I never took 
my eyes from the Vicar's granite features, as type- 
written sheet after sheet was turned so softly by 
139 


Witching Hill 

his iron hand that it might have been some doc- 
trinal pamphleteer who claimed his cool atten- 
tion. 

When he had finished he rose very quietly and 
put the whole MS. behind the grate. Then I re- 
membered that Delavoye also was in the room, and 
I signalled to him because the Vicar was stooping 
over the well-laid grate and striking matches. But 
Delavoye only shook his head, and sat where he 
was, when Mr. Brabazon turned and surveyed us 
both, with the firewood crackling behind his cler- 
ical tails. 

“ Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Delavoye,” said 
he; “but I think you will agree that this is a case 
for the exercise of my powers in connection with 
our little magazine. The stupendous production 
now perishing in the flames was of course intended 
as a practical joke at our expense.” 

“And I never saw it!” cried Uvo, scrambling to 
his feet. “Of course, if you come to think of it, 
that’s the whole and only explanation — isn’t it, 
Gillon? A little dig at the Delavoyes as well, by 
the way!” 

“Chiefly at us, I imagine,” said the Vicar dryly. 
“I rather suspect that the very style of writing is 
an attempt at personal caricature. The taste is 
140 


The Local Colour 

execrable all through. But that is only to be ex- 
pected of the anonymous lampooner.” 

“Was there really no name to it, Mr. Bra- 
bazon?” 

The question was asked for information, but 
Uvo’s tone was that of righteous disgust. 

“No name at all. And one sheet of type-writing 
is exactly like another! My sister had not read it 
all herself, I gather ?” 

“Evidently not* And she only read the first 
half to us.” 

“Thank goodness for that!” cried the Vicar, off 
his guard. “The whole impertinence,” he ran on 
more confidentially, “is so paltry, so vulgar, so 
egregiously badly done ! It’s all beneath contempt, 
and I shall not descend to the perpetrator’s level 
by attempting to discover who he is. Neither 
shall I permit the matter to be mentioned again 
in my household. And as gentlemen I look to 
you both to resist the ventilation of a most un- 
gentlemanly hoax.” 

But the promise that we freely gave did not 
preclude us from returning at once to No. 7, and 
there and then concocting a letter to Miss Julia, 
which I slipped into the letter-box of the make- 
shift vicarage as the birds were waking in the wood 
behind Mulcaster Park. 

141 


Witching Hill 

It was simply to say that Uvo was after all 
afraid that his kith and kin really might resent 
the publication of her thrilling but painful tale of 
their common ancestor; and therefore he had ta- 
ken Miss Brabazon at her word, and the MS. was 
no more. Its destruction was really demanded 
by the inexplicable fact that the story was the 
true story of a discreditable case in which the in- 
famous Lord Mulcaster had actually figured; and 
the further fact that Miss Brabazon had never- 
theless invented it, so far as she personally was 
aware, would have constituted another and still 
more interesting case for the Psychical Research 
Society, but for the aforesaid objections to its pub- 
lication in any shape or form. | 

All this made a document difficult to draw up, 
and none too convincing when drawn; but that 
was partly because the collaborators were already 
divided over every feature of the extraordinary af- 
fair, which indeed afforded food for argument for 
many a day to come. But in the meantime our 
dear Miss Julia accepted sentence and execution 
with a gentle and even a jocose resignation which 
made us both miserable. We did not even know 
that there had been any real occasion for the holo- 
caust for which we claimed responsibility, or to 
what extent or lengths the unconscious plagia- 
142 


The Local Colour 

rism had proceeded. Delavoye, of course, took 
the view that coincided with his precious theory, 
whereas I argued from Mr. Brabazon’s coolness 
that we had heard the worst. 

But the Vicar always was cool out of the pul- 
pit; and it was almost a pity that we rewarded 
his moderation by going to church the next Sun- 
day, for I never shall forget his ferocious sermon 
on the modern purveyor of pernicious literature. 
He might have been raving from bitter experience, 
as Delavoye of course declared he was. But there 
is one redeeming point in my recollection of his 
tirade. And that is a vivid and consoling vision of 
the elder Miss Brabazon, listening with a rapt and 
unconscious serenity to every burning word. 


143 


The Angel of Life 


C OPLESTONE was the first of our tenants 
who had taken his house through me, and 
I was extremely proud of him. It was precisely 
the pride of the mighty hunter in his first kill; 
for Coplestone was big game in his way, and even 
of a leonine countenance, with his crested wave of 
tawny hair and his clear sunburnt skin. In early 
life, as an incomparable oar, he had made a name 
which still had a way of creeping into the sport- 
ing papers; and at forty the same fine figure and 
untarnished face were a walking advertisement of 
virtue. But now he had also the grim eyes and 
stubborn jaw of the man who has faced big trouble; 
he wore sombre ties that suggested the kind of 
trouble it had been; and he settled down among 
us to a solitude only broken in the holidays of his 
only child, then a boy of twelve at a preparatory 
school. 

I first heard of the boy’s existence when Cople- 
stone chose the papers for his house. Anything 
seemed good enough for the “ three reception- 
rooms and usual offices”; but over a bedroom and 
144 


The Angel of Life 

a play-room on the first floor we were an hour 
deciding against every pattern in the books, and 
then on the exact self-colour to be obtained else- 
where. It was at the end of that hour that a 
chance remark, about the evening paper and the 
latest cricket, led to a little conversation, insignif- 
icant in itself, yet enough to bring Coplestone and 
me into touch about better things than house dec- 
oration. Often after that, when he came down of 
an afternoon, he would look in at the office and 
leave me his Pall Mall . And he brought the boy 
in with him on the first day of the mid-summer 
holidays. 

“Ronnie’s a keen cricketer at present,” said 
Coplestone on that occasion. “But he’s got to 
be a wet-bob like his old governor when he goes 
on to Eton. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it, 
Ronnie? We’re going to take each other on the 
river every blessed day of the holidays.” 

Ronnie beamed with the brightest little face in 
all the world. He had bright-brown eyes and dark- 
brown hair, and his skin burned a delicate brown 
instead of the paternal pink. His expression was 
his father’s, but not an atom of his colouring. 
His mother must have been a brunette and a beau- 
tiful woman. I could not help thinking of her as 
145 


Witching Hill 

I looked at the beaming boy who seemed to have 
forgotten his loss, if he had ever realised it. And 
yet it was just a touch of something in his face, a 
something pensive and constrained, when he was 
not smiling, that gave him also such a look of 
Coplestone at times. 

But as a rule Ronnie was sizzling with happi- 
ness and excitement; and it was my privilege to 
see a lot of him those hot holidays. Coplestone 
did not go away for a single night or day. Most 
mornings one met him and his boy in flannels, on 
their way down to the river, laden with their lunch. 
But because the exclusive society of the best of 
boys must eventually bore the most affectionate 
of men, I was sometimes invited to join the pic- 
nic, and on Saturdays and Sundays, I accepted 
more than once. Those, however, were the days 
on which I was nearly always bespoke by Uvo 
Delavoye, and once when I said so it ended in 
our all going off together in a bigger boat. That 
day marked a decline in Ronnie’s regard for me 
as an ex-member of a minor school eleven. It was 
not, perhaps, that he admired me less, but that 
Delavoye, who played no games at all, had never- 
theless a way with him that fascinated man and 
boy alike. 


146 


The Angel of Life 

With Ronnie, it was a way of cracking jokes 
and telling stories, and taking an extraordinary 
interest in the boy’s preparatory school, so that 
its rather small beer came bubbling out in a spark- 
ling brew that Coplestone himself had failed to 
tap. Then Uvo could talk like an inspired pro- 
fessional about the games he could not play, about 
books like an author, and about adventures like a 
born adventurer. In Egypt, moreover, he had 
seen a little life that went a long way in the tell- 
ing; conversely, one always felt that he had done 
a bigger thing or two out there than he pretended. 
To a small boy, at all events, he was irresistible. 
Had he been an usher at a school like Ronnie’s he 
would have had a string of them on either arm at 
every turn. As it was, a less sensible father might 
well have been jealous of him before the holidays 
were nearly over. 

But it was just in the holidays that Coplestone 
was at his best; when the boy went back in Sep- 
tember, we were to see him at his worst. In the 
beginning he was merely moody and depressed, 
and morose toward us two as creatures who had 
served our turn. The more we tried to cheer his 
solitude, the less encouragement we received. If 
we cared to call again at Christmas, he hinted, we 
147 


Witching Hill 

should be welcome, but not before. We watched 
him go off bicycling alone in the red autumn after- 
noons. We saw his light on half of the night; late 
as we were, he was always later; and now he was 
never to be seen at all of a morning. But his 
grim eyes had lost their light, his ruddy face had 
changed its shade, and erelong I saw him reeling 
in broad daylight. 

Coplestone had taken to the bottle — and as a 
strong man takes to everything — without fear or 
shame. Yet somehow I felt it was for the first 
time in his life; so did Delavoye, but on other 
grounds. I did not believe he could have been 
the man he was when he came to us, if this curse 
had ever descended on Coplestone before. Yet he 
seemed to take it rather as a blessing, as a sudden 
discovery which he was a fool not to have made 
before. This was no case of surreptitious, shame- 
faced tippling; it was a cynically open and defiant 
downfall, at once an outrage on a more than de- 
cent community, and a new interest in many ad- 
mirable lives. 

Soon there were complaints which I was re- 
quested to transmit to Coplestone in his next 
lucid interval. But I only pretended to have done 
so. I thought the complainants a set of self-right- 
148 


The Angel of Life 

eous busy-bodies, and I vastly preferred the good 
will of the delinquent. That was partly on Ron- 
nie’s account, partly for the sake of the man’s own 
magnificent past, but partly also because his pres- 
ent seemed to me a fleeting phase of sheer insan- 
ity, which would end as suddenly as it had super- 
vened. The form was too bad to be true, even if 
Copies tone had ever shown it before; and there 
was now some evidence that he had not. 

Delavoye had come down from town with eyes 
as bright as Ronnie’s. 

“You remember Sawrey-Biggerstaff by name? 
He was second for the Diamonds the second year 
Coplestone won them, and he won them himself 
the year after. I met him to-day with a man who 
lunched me at the United University. I told him 
we had Coplestone down here, and asked him if it 
was true that he had ever been off* the rails like 
this before, only without breathing a word about 
his being off them now. Sawrey-Biggerstaff* swore 
that he had never heard of such a libel, or struck 
a more abstemious hound than Harry Coplestone, 
or ever heard of him being or ever having been 
anything else! So you must see what it all means, 
Gilly.” 

“It means that he’s never got over the loss of 
his wife.” 


149 


Witching Hill 

“But that happened nearly three years ago. 
Ronnie told me. Why didn’t the old boy break 
out before? Why save it all up for Witching 
Hill?” 

“I know what you’re going to say.” 

“But isn’t it obvious? Our wicked old man 
drank like an aquarium. His vices are the weeds 
of this polluted soil; they crop up one after the 
other, and with inveterate irony he’s allotted this 
one to the noblest creature on the place. It’s for 
us to save him by hook or crook — or rather it’s 
my own hereditary job.” 

“And how do you mean to set about it?” 

“You’ll be angry with me, Gilly, but I shan’t 
be happy till I see his house on your hands again. 
It’s the only chance — to drive him into fresh woods 
and pastures new!” 

I was angry. I declined to discuss the matter 
any further; but I stuck to my opinion that the 
cloud would vanish as quickly as it had gathered. 
And Coplestone of all men was man enough to 
stand his ground and live it down. 

But first he must take himself in hand, instead 
of which I had to own that he was going from bad 
to worse. He was a man of leisure, and he drank 
as though he had found his vocation in the bottle. 
He was a lonely man, and he drank as though 
150 


The Angel of Life 

drink was a friend in need and not the deadliest 
foe. He was the only drunkard I ever knew who 
drank with impenitent zest; and I saw something 
of him at his worst; he was more approachable 
than he had been before his great surrender. All 
October and November he kept it up, his name 
a byword far beyond the confines of the Estate, 
and by December he must have been near the in- 
evitable climax. Then he disappeared. The ser- 
vants had no idea of his whereabouts; but he had 
taken luggage. That was the best reason for be- 
lieving him to be still alive, until he turned up 
with his boy for the Christmas holidays. 

It would be too much to say that he looked as 
he had looked last holidays. The man had aged; 
he seemed even a little shaken, but not more than 
by a moderate dose of influenza; and to a casual 
eye the improvement was more astounding than 
the previous deterioration, especially in its rapid- 
ity. His spirits were at least as good as they had 
been before, his hospitality in keeping with the 
season. I ate my Christmas dinner with father 
and son, and Delavoye and I first-footed them on 
New Year’s morning. What was most remark- 
able on these occasions was the way Coplestone 
drank his champagne, with the happy moderation 
I5i 


Witching Hill 

of a man who has never exceeded in his life. There 
was now no shadow of excess, but neither was there 
any of the weakling’s recourse to the opposite ex- 
treme of meticulous austerity. A doctor might 
have forbidden even a hair of the sleeping dog, 
but to us young fellows it was a joy to see our 
hero so completely his own man once more. 

Early in January came a frost — a thrilling frost 
— with skating on the gravel-pit ponds beyond the 
Village. It was a pastime in which I had taken 
an untutored delight, all the days of my northern 
youth, and now I put in every hour I could at 
the clumsy execution of elementary figures. But 
Coplestone had spent some winters in Switzerland, 
and he was a past master in the Continental style. 
Ordinary skaters would form a ring to watch his 
dazzling displays, and those who had not seen 
him in the autumn must have found it hard to 
credit the whispers of those who had. His pink 
skin regained its former purity, his blue eyes shone 
like fairy lamps, and the whole ice rang with the 
music of his “edge” as he sped careening like a 
human yacht. It was better still to watch him 
patiently imparting the rudiments to Ronnie, who 
picked them up as a small boy will, and worked 
so hard that the perspiration would stand upon 
152 


The Angel of Life 

the smooth brown face for all that wondrous frost. 
It froze, more or less, all the rest of those holidays, 
and the Coplestones never missed a day until the 
last of all. I was hoping to find them on the ice 
at dusk, if only I could manage to get away in 
time, but early in the afternoon Uvo Delavoye 
came along to disabuse my mind. 

“That young Ronnie’s caught a chill,” said he 
— “I thought he would. It’ll keep him at home 
for another day or two, so the ill wind may blow 
old Coplestone a bit of good. I’m feeling a bit 
anxious about him, Gilly; wild horses won’t drag 
him from this haunted hill! Just at this moment, 
however, he’s on his way to Richmond to see if he 
can get Ronnie the new Wisden; and I’m sneak- 
ing up to town because I know it’s not to be had 
nearer. I was wondering if you could make time 
to look him up while we’re gone?” 

I made it there and then at the risk of my place; 
it was not so often that I had Ronnie to myself. 
But at the very gate I ceased to think about the 
child. A Pickford van was delivering something 
at the house. At a glance I knew it for a six- 
gallon jar of whiskey — to see poor Coplestone 
some little way into the Easter term. 

Ronnie lay hot and dry in his bed, but brown 
153 


Witching Hill 

and bright as he had looked upon the ice, and 
sizzling with the exuberance of a welcome that 
warmed my heart. He told me, of course, that 
it was “ awful rot” losing the last day like this; 
but, on the other hand, he seemed delighted with 
his room — he always was delighted with some- 
thing — and professed himself rather glad of an op- 
portunity of appreciating it as it deserved. In- 
deed, there was not a lazy bone in his little body, 
and I doubt if he had spent an unnecessary min- 
ute in his bedroom all the holidays. But they 
really were delightful quarters, those two adjoin- 
ing rooms for which no paper in our stock had 
been good enough. Both were now radiant in a 
sky-blue self-colour that transported one to the 
tropics, and certainly looked better than I thought 
it would when I had the trouble of procuring it. 

In the bedroom the blue was only broken by 
some simple white furniture, by a row of books 
over the bed, and by groups of the little eleven in 
which Ronnie already had a place, and photo- 
graphs of his father at one or two stages of his 
great career. I was still exploring when an eager 
summons brought me to the bedside. 

“ Let’s play cricket!” cried Ronnie — “do you 
mind? With a pack of cards — my own invention! 
154 


The Angel of Life 

Everything up to six counts properly; all over six 
count singles, except the picture cards, and most 
of them get you out. King and queen are caught 
and bowled, but the old knave's Mr. Extras!" 

“ Capital, Ronnie!" said I. “Shall it be single 
wicket between us two, or the next test-match 
with Australia?" 

Ronnie was all for the test, and really the rules 
worked very well. You shuffled after the fall of 
every wicket, and you never knew your luck. 
Tom Richardson, the last man in for England, 
made sixty-two, while some who shall be name- 
less went down like ninepins in the van. In the 
next test (at Lord's) we elaborated the laws to 
admit of stumping, running out, getting leg-before 
and even hitting wicket. But the red kings and 
queens still meant a catch or what Ronnie called 
“a row in your timber yard." And so the after- 
noon wore on, until I had to mend the fire and 
light the gas; and then somehow the cards seemed 
only cards, and we put them away for that season. 

I forget why it was that Ronnie suddenly wanted 
his knife. I rather think that he was deliberately 
rallying his possessions about him in philosophic 
preparation for a lengthy campaign between the 
sheets. In any case there was no finding that 
155 


Witching Hill 

knife, but something much more interesting came 
to light instead. 

I was conducting the search under directions 
from the bed, but I was out of sight behind the 
screen when I kicked up the corner of loose carpet 
and detected the loosened board. Here, thought 
I, was a secret repository where the missing pos- 
session might have been left by mistake; there 
were the actual marks of a blade upon the floor. 
“This looks a likely place,” I said; but I did not 
specify the place I meant, and the next moment I 
had discovered neither knife nor pencil, but the 
soiled, unframed photograph of a lovely lady. 

There it had lain under the movable bit of 
board, which had made a certain noise in the 
moving. That same second Ronnie bounded 
out of bed, and I to my feet to chase him back 
again. 

“Who told you to look in there? Give that to 
me this minute! No — no — please put it back 
where you — where you found it!” 

His momentary rage had already broken down 
in sobs, but he stood over me while I quickly did 
as he begged and replaced the carpet; then I 
tucked him up again, but for some time the bed 
shook under his anguish. I told him how sorry I 
156 


The Angel of Life 

was, again and yet again, and I suppose eventu- 
ally my tone bewrayed me. 

“So you know who it is?” he asked, suddenly 
regarding me with dry bright eyes. 

“I couldn’t help seeing the likeness,” I replied. 

“It’s my mother,” he said unnecessarily. 

His manner was curiously dogged and unlike 
him. 

“And you keep her photograph under the floor?” 

“Yes; you don’t see many about, do you?” he 
inquired with precocious bitterness. 

There was not one to be seen downstairs. That 
I knew from my glimpse of the photograph under 
the floor; there was nothing like it on any of the 
walls, nothing so beautiful, nothing with that 
rather wild, defiant expression which I saw again 
in Ronnie at this moment. 

“But why under the floor?” I persisted, guess- 
ing vaguely though I did. 

“You won’t tell anybody you saw it there?” 

“Not a soul.” 

“You promise?” 

“Solemnly.” 

“You won’t say a single word about it, if I tell 
you something?” 

“Not a syllable.” 

157 


Witching Hill 

“Well — then — it’s because I don’t want Daddy 
to see it, for fear ” 

“ — it would grieve him?” I suggested as the 
end of his broken sentence. And I held my breath 
in the sudden hope that I might be right. 

“For fear he tears it up!” the boy said harshly. 
“He did that once before, and this is the last I’ve 
got.” 

I made no comment, and there were no fur- 
ther confidences from Ronnie. So many things I 
wanted to know and could not ask? I could only 
hold my peace and Ronnie’s hot hand, until it 
pinched mine in sudden warning, as the whole 
house lept under a springy step upon the stairs. 

“Not a word to anybody, you know, Mr. Gil- 
lon?” 

“Not one, to a single soul, Ronnie!” 

But it was a heavy seal that was thus placed 
upon my lips; heavy as lead when I discussed the 
child with Uvo Delavoye; and that was almost 
every minute that we spent together for days to 
come. 

For Ronnie became very ill. 

In the beginning it was an honest chill. The 
chill turned to that refuge of the General Prac- 
158 


The Angel of Life 

titioner — influenza. Double pneumonia was its 
last, most definite stage; the local doctor made 
no mistake about that, and Coplestone appealed 
in vain against the verdict, before specialists who 
came down from London at a guinea a mile. 

It was a mild enough case so far. The boy was 
strong and healthy, and capable of throwing off at 
least as much as most strong men. He was also a 
capital little patient — and Coplestone was a mag- 
nificent patient’s father. He did not harry the 
doctors; he treated the elderly Scotch nurse like 
a queen; he was not always in and out of the sick- 
room by day, and he never set foot in it during the 
night. In the daytime Delavoye took him for 
long walks, and I would sit up with him at night 
until he started nodding in his chair. 

The first night he said: “You must have some 
whiskey, Gillon. I’ve got a new lot in.” And 
when I said I seldom touched it — “I know you 
don’t, in this house,” he rejoined, with his hand 
for an instant on my shoulder. “But that’s all 
right, Gillon! — Do you happen to know much 
about Dr. Johnson?” 

“Hardly anything. You should try Uvo.” 

“Well, I don’t know much myself; but I always 
remember that when the poor old boy was dying 
159 


Witching Hill 

he refused the drugs which were giving him all 
the peace he got, because he said he’d made up 
his mind to ‘render up his soul to God unclouded.’ 
Now I come to think of it, there’s not much anal- 
ogy,” continued Coplestone with a husky laugh. 
“But I know I’d rather do what Dr. Johnson 
wouldn’t than go up clouded to my little lad if 
ever he — wanted me!” 

And he took about a teaspoonful from a mis- 
taken sense of hospitality, but no second allow- 
ance as the night wore on. The next night I was 
able to refuse without offending him; after that 
the decanter was never touched. Yet once or 
twice I saw the stopper taken out in sheer absence 
of mind, only to be replaced without flurry or hesi- 
tation. 

Self-control? I never knew a man with more; 
it came out every hour that we spent together, 
and before long it was needed almost every min- 
ute. One day Delavoye dashed into the office in 
town clothes and with a tragic face. 

“They want a second nurse! It’s come to that 
already,” he said, “and I’m going up about it 
now.” 

“But isn’t that the doctor’s job?” I asked, lik- 
ing the looks of him as little as his news. 

160 


The Angel of Life 

“I can’t help it if it is, Gilly! I must lend a 
hand somehow or I shall crack up. It’s little 
enough one can do, besides being day-nurse to 
poor old Coplestone, and this afternoon he’s asleep 
for once. What a great chap he is, Gilly, and will 
be ever after, if only we can pull the lad through 
and then get them both out of this! But it’s two 
lives hanging on one thread, and that cursed old 
man of mine trying all he knows to cut it! I’ll 
euchre him, you’ll see. By hook or crook I’ll balk 
him ” 

But white clouds were tumbling behind the red 
houses opposite, and Delavoye dashed out again to 
catch his train, like the desperate leader of a for- 
lorn hope, leaving his dark eyes burning before 
mine and his wild words ringing in my ears. 

Quite apart from the point on which he was 
never sane, he seemed to have lost the otherwise 
level head on which I had learnt to rely at any 
crisis; but Coplestone still kept his, and him I ad- 
mired more and more. He still took his exercise 
like a man, refrained from harrying nurse or doc- 
tor, showed an untroubled face by the sick-bed, 
but avoided the room more and more, and alto- 
gether during the terrible delirious stages. 

“If I were to stay there long,” he said to me 
161 


Witching Hill 

once, “I should make a scene. I couldn’t help it. 
There are more things than one to cloud your 
mind, and I’ve got to keep mine unclouded all the 
time.” 

He kept it very nearly serene; and his serenity 
was not the numbness of despair which sometimes 
wears the same appearance; for I do not think 
there was a moment at which Coplestone de- 
spaired. He had much too stout a heart. There 
was nothing forced or unnatural in his manner; 
his feelings were not deadened for an instant, yet 
not for an instant would he give them rein. Only, 
our sober vigils cut deeper lines than his excesses 
before Christmas, and every night left him a hard 
year older. 

We spent them all down-stairs in his study. 
Neither of us was a chess-player, and I was all 
unversed in cards, but sometimes we played 
draughts or dominoes by the hour, as though one 
of us had been Ronnie himself. Often we talked 
of him, but never as though there were any ques- 
tion of his eventual recovery. Coplestone would 
only go so far as to bemoan the probability of an 
entirely lost hockey term, and his eye would steal 
round to the photograph of last year’s hockey 
eleven at Ronnie’s little school, in a place of hon- 
162 


The Angel of Life 

our on the mantelpiece, where indeed it concealed 
one of his own most heroic trophies. 

Fitted and proportioned like half a hundred 
others on the Estate, that study of Coplestone’s 
is one of those Witching Hill interiors that time 
cannot dismantle in my mind. It was filled with 
the memorials of a brilliant boyhood. There were 
framed photographs of four Cambridge crews, of 
two Eton eights, of the Eton Society with Cople- 
stone to the fore in white trousers, of the “long 
low wall with trees behind it” and of the “old 
grey chapel behind the trees.” There were also 
a number of parti-coloured caps under suspended 
oars, and more silver in the shape of cups, salvers, 
and engraved cigarette boxes than his modest staff 
of servants could possibly keep clean. Over the 
mantelpiece hung the rules of the Eton Society — 
under glass — with a trophy of canes decked with 
light-blue ribbons. 

“It all looks pretty blatant, Fm afraid,” said 
Coplestone apologetically. “But I thought it 
would interest Ronnie and perhaps hound him 
on to cut me out. And now ” 

He stopped, and I hoped he was not going on, 
for this was when Ronnie was at his worst and 
the second nurse had arrived. 

163 


Witching Hill 

“And now,” said Coplestone, “the little sinner 
wants to be a dry-bob!” 

I have not naturally a despondent tempera- 
ment, but that night I for my part was wonder- 
ing whether Ronnie would ever go to Eton at all. 
The delirious stage is always terrifying to the har- 
rowed ignoramus watching by the bed; it is al- 
most worse if one is down-stairs, trying not to lis- 
ten, yet doing little else, and without the nurse’s 
calm voice and experienced eyes to reassure one. 
That was how I spent that night. The delirium 
had begun the night before, and been intermittent 
ever since. But Coplestone was not terrified; he 
kept both nerve and spirits like a hero. His 
thought for me brought a lump into my throat. 
Since I refused to leave him, I must take the sofa; 
he would do splendidly in the chair. He did bet- 
ter than I could have believed possible. He fell 
peacefully asleep, and I sat up watching his great 
long limbs in the lowered gaslight, but always lis- 
tening while I watched. 

Ronnie had not the makings of his father’s fine 
physique. That was one of the disquieting fea- 
tures of the case. He was fragile, excitable, highly 
strung, as I felt his poor mother must have been 
before him. And he was tragically like his hid- 
164 


The Angel of Life 

den portrait of her. I saw it as often as I was 
permitted a peep at Ronnie. What had she done 
amiss before she died ? That was perhaps the chief 
thing I wanted to know about her, but after my 
pledge to Ronnie I felt unable even to discuss the 
poor soul with Delavoye. But she was only less 
continually in my mind than Ronnie himself, and 
to-night it seemed she was in his as well. 

“0 Mummie! Mummie — darling! My very, 
very, own little Mummie!” 

God knows what had taken me up-stairs, except 
the awful fascination of such wanderings, the men- 
tal necessity of either hearing them or knowing 
that they had ceased. On the stairs I felt so 
thankful they had ceased; it was in the darkened 
play-room, now a magazine of hospital appliances, 
kettles, bottles, and the oxygen apparatus; it was 
here I heard the joyous ravings of his loving little 
heart — here, on the threshold between his own 
two rooms, that I even saw him with his thin 
arms locked round the neck of the young nurse 
who had taken over the night duty. 

She heard me. She came to the door and stood 
in silhouette against the cheerful firelight of the 
inner room. Its glow just warmed one side of her 
white cap and plain apparel, then glanced off her 

165 


Witching Hill 

high white forehead and made a tear twinkle un- 
derneath. 

“He thinks Fm his mother,” she whispered — 
“and Fm letting him!” 

I went out and pulled myself together on the 
landing, before sneaking back into the study with- 
out waking Coplestone. 

In the morning I was dozing behind my counter 
without compunction, for the vigil had been an 
absolutely sleepless one for me, when the glass 
door opened like a clap of thunder, and in comes 
Delavoye rubbing his hands. 

“The doctor’s grinning all round his head this 
morning!” he crowed. “You may take it from me 
that there’s a lot of life in our young dog yet.” 

“What’s his temperature?” 

“Down to a hundred and a bit. One thing at 
a time. They’ve scotched that infernal delirium, 
at all events.” 

“Since when?” 

“Sometime in the night. He’s not talking any 
rot this morning.” 

“But he was fairly raving after midnight. I 
went up and heard him myself.” 

Uvo broke into exulting smiles. 

“Ah! Gilly,” said he, “but now we’ve got an 
1 66 



I even saw him with his thin arms locked round the neck of 

the young nurse 







The Angel of Life 

angel abroad in the house. You can almost hear 
the beating of her wings !” 

“Is that your own, Uvo?” 

“No; it’s a bit of a chestnut in these days. 
But it was said originally of the angel of death, 
Gilly, and I mean the opposite sort of angel alto- 
gether.” 

“The young nurse?” 

“Exactly. She’s simply priceless. But I knew 
she would be.” 

“You knew something about her, then?” 

“Enough to bring her down on my own yester- 
day and blow the doctor! But he’s all for her 
now.” 

So, indeed, was I; for though a tear is nowhere 
more out of place than on the cheek of a trained 
nurse, yet in none is it such welcome evidence of 
human interest and affection. And there was the 
tender tact of the pretence to which she had lent 
herself before my eyes; even as a memory it nearly 
filled them afresh. Yet I could not speak of it to 
Coplestone, and to Delavoye I would not, lest I 
were led into betraying that which I had promised 
Ronnie to keep entirely to myself. 

Nurse Agnes we all called her, but I for one 
hardly saw her again, save on the daily constitu- 
167 


Witching Hill 

tional in grey uniform and flowing veil. The fact 
was that the improvement in Ronnie was so 
marked, and so splendidly sustained, that both 
his father and I were able to get to bed again. 
The boy himself had capital nights, and said he 
looked forward to them; on the other hand, for 
final sign of approaching convalescence, he became 
just a little difficult by day. Altogether it was no 
surprise to me to learn that two nurses would not 
be necessary after the second week; but I was 
sorry to hear it was Nurse Agnes who was going, 
and I thought that Uvo Delavoye would be sor- 
rier still. 

There was something between them. I felt 
sure of that. His rushing up to town to fetch 
her down, the absurd grounds on which he had 
pretended to justify that officious proceeding, and 
then his candid enthusiasm next day, when his 
protegee had shown her quality, all these were 
suspicious circumstances in themselves. Yet by 
themselves, at such a time, they might easily have 
escaped one’s attention. It was a more than sus- 
picious circumstance that brought the whole train 
home to me. 

I was getting my exercise one mid-day when 
there was nothing doing; suddenly I saw Nurse 
1 68 


The Angel of Life 

Agnes ahead of me getting hers. Her thin veil 
flew about her as she stepped out briskly, but I 
was walking quicker still; in any case I must over- 
take her, and it was a chance of hearing more good 
news of Ronnie; for we never saw anything of her 
at night, except in firelit glimpses through the sick- 
room door. Evidently these were not enough for 
Uvo either; presently I espied him sauntering 
ahead, and when Nurse Agnes overtook him, in- 
stead of my overtaking her, he hardly took the 
trouble to lift his hat. But they walked on to- 
gether at a pace between his and hers, while I 
waited in a gateway before turning back. 

So that was it! I was delighted for Uvo’s sake; 
I tried to feel delighted altogether. At any rate 
he had chosen a wonderful nurse, but really I 
had seen so little of the girl ... if that was the 
word for her. In the apparent absence of other 
objections, I was prepared for a distinct grievance 
on the score of age. 

However, she was going. That was something, 
and Uvo did not seem particularly cut up about it 
after all. But he brought the cab for her himself 
when the time came; he did not come in; but I 
saw him through the window as I sat at draughts 
once more with Coplestone, because it was a 
169 


Witching Hill 

Saturday afternoon and Ronnie was not quite so 
well. 

“This must be for Nurse Agnes,” I said inno- 
cently. “It seems a pity she should go so soon.” 

“But she’s not going yet!” cried Coplestone, 
upsetting the board. “She’s going this evening; 
the other nurse told me she was. Of course I’ve 
got to see her before she goes!” 

“I fancy that’s her cab,” said I, unwilling 
to give Delavoye away, but feeling much more 
strongly that Nurse Agnes had saved Ronnie’s 
life. 

“I didn’t hear the bell,” said Coplestone. 

“Still, I believe that’s Nurse Agnes on the 
stairs.” 

I had heard one creak, but only one, and the 
nurse was on tiptoe outside the door as Cople- 
stone opened it. She might have been a thief, 
she seemed so startled. 

“Why, nurse, what do you mean by trying to 
give me the slip?” he said in his hearty voice. 
“Do you know they all tell me you’ve saved my 
little chap’s life, and yet I’ve hardly seen you all 
the time? You’d always fixed him up for the 
night by the time I’d finished dinner, and I’ve 
been so late in the morning that we’ve kept 
170 


on 


The Angel of Life 

missing each other at both ends. YouVe got to 
spare me a moment now, you know!” 

But Nurse Agnes would only stand mumbling 
and smiling in the half-lit hall. 

“I — I mustn’t lose my train,” was all I heard. 

And then I realised that even I had only heard 
her voice once before, and that now it did not 
sound the same voice. It was not meant to sound 
the same — that was why — I had it in a flash. 
And in that flash I saw that Nurse Agnes had been 
keeping out of our way all these days and nights, 
keeping us out of her way by a dozen tacit little 
regulations which had seemed only proper and 
professional at the time. 

But a fiercer light had struck Coplestone like 
a lash across the eyes. And he started back as 
though stung and blinded, until Nurse Agnes tried 
to dart past the door; then his long arm shot out, 
and I shuddered as he dragged her in by hers. 

“You!” he gasped, and his jaw worked as though 
he had been knocked out in the ring. 

“Yes,” she said coolly, facing him through her 
veil; “and they’re quite right — I’ve saved your 
boy for you. Do you mind letting me go?” 

I forced my way past the pair of them, and 
rushed out to Delavoye waiting with the cab. 

171 


Witching Hill 

“Who is she? Who on earth is this nurse of 
yours?” I cried without restraint. 

He drew me out of ear-shot of the cabman. 

“Has Coplestone spotted her?” 

“This very minute — but who is she?” 

“His wife.” 

“I thought she was dead?” 

“No; he divorced her three years ago.” 

“Who told you?” 

“Ronnie.” 

“And you never told me!” 

“I promised him I wouldn’t tell a soul.” 

The little rascal! He had bound us both; but 
there was a characteristic difference as between 
Delavoye and me, and the feelings that we in- 
spired in that gallant little heart. Whereas I had 
surprised its secret, Ronnie had confided in Uvo 
of his own free will and accord. 

“And it was he who begged me to bring her, 
Gilly, when he was at his worst! He said it was 
his one hope — that she could pull him through — 
that he knew she could! So I found her, and she 
did. She wasn’t really a nurse, but she was his 
mother; she was his Angel of Life.” 

“Will she be forgiven?” I asked, when we had 
looked askance at the study windows, that gave 
172 



“ I’ve saved your boy for you. Do you mind letting me go?” 


































































. 


































































. 






•* 






























- 









































The Angel of Life 

us back only the wavering reflection of shrubs and 
of the chimneys opposite. 

“Will she forgive?” returned Uvo sardonically. 
“It’s always harder for the one who’s in the wrong, 
and there’s always something to be said for him 
or her!” 

“Does she know that her husband needs to be 
saved as well?” 

“ Hush ! ” said Delavoye. The door had opened. 
Coplestone came out upon the step and stood there 5 
feeling in his pockets. 

I held my breath; and the only creature who 
counted just then, in all that road of bleak red 
houses, and in all the wintry world beyond, was 
the great shaken fellow coming down the path. 

“You might give this to the cabby,” said he, 
filling my palm with loose silver. “Just tell him 
we shan’t want him now!” 


173 


Under Arms 


I T must have been in my second year of humble 
office that the burglary scare took possession 
of Witching Hill. It was certainly the burglars’ 
month of November, and the fogs confirmed its 
worst traditions. On a night when the street 
lamps burst upon one at the last moment, like the 
flash of cannon through their own smoke, a house 
in Witching Hill Road was scientifically entered, 
and the silver abstracted in a style worthy of 
precious stones. In that instance the thieves got 
clear away with their modest spoil. It was as 
though they then made a deliberate sporting se- 
lection of the ugliest customer on the Estate. 
Their choice fell upon a Colonel Arthur Cheffins, 
who not only kept firearms but knew how to use 
them, and gave such an account of himself that it 
was a miracle how the rascals escaped with their 
lives. 

The first I heard of this affair was a volley of 
gravel on my window at dead of night. Then 
came Uvo Delavoye’s voice through the fog be- 
fore I quite knew what I was doing at the open 
174 


Under Arms 

window. Colonel Cheffins lived in the house op- 
posite the Delavoyes’, where he had lately started 
a cramming establishment on a small scale; and 
on his rushing over the road to the rescue, at the 
first sound of the fusilade, poor Uvo had himself 
been under fire in the fog. The good colonel was 
in a great way about it, I gathered, although no 
harm had been done, and it was only one of the 
pupils who had loosed off in his excitement. But 
would I care to come along and inspect the dam- 
age then and there? If so, they would be glad 
to see me, and as yet there was whiskey for all 
comers. 

I turned out instantly in my dressing-gown and 
slippers, found Uvo shivering in his, and raced him 
to the scene. It took some finding in the fog, until 
the lighted hall flashed upon us like a dark lantern 
at arm’s length. In the class-room at the back of 
the house, round the gas fire which obtained in all 
our houses, pedagogue and pupils were still telling 
their tale by turns and in chaotic chorus. Their 
audience was smaller than I expected. A little 
knot of unsporting tenants seemed more disposed 
to complain of the disturbance than to take up 
the chase; but indeed that was hopeless in the 
fog and darkness, and before long Uvo and I were 
175 


Witching Hill 

the only interlopers left. We remained by special 
invitation, for I had made friends with the colonel 
over the papering and painting of his house, while 
Uvo had just shown himself a would-be friend in- 
deed. 

“It’s a very easy battle to reconstruct,” said the 
crammer at the foot of his stairs. “I was up there 
on the landing when I took my first shot at the 
scoundrels. You’ll find it in the lower part of the 
front door. One of them blazed back, and there’s 
the hole in the landing window. I had last word 
from the mat, and I’ve been looking for it in the 
gate, but I begin to hope we may find a drop or 
two of their blood instead to-morrow morning.” 

Colonel Cheffins was a little bald man with 
a tooth-brush moustache, and bright eyes that 
danced with frank delight in the whole adventure. 
He looked every inch the old soldier, even in a 
Jaeger suit of bedroom overalls, and I vastly pre- 
ferred him to his two young men; but scholastic 
connections are not formed by picking and choos- 
ing your original material. Delavoye and I, how- 
ever, made as free as they with the whiskey bottle 
as a substitute for adequate clothing, and the one 
who had nearly committed manslaughter had 
some excuse in his depression and remorse. 

176 


Under Arms 

“If Td hit you,” he said to Uvo, “I’d have 
blown my own silly brains out with the next 
chamber. I’m not kidding. I wouldn’t shoot a 
man for twenty thousand pounds!” 

And he shuddered into the chair nearest the 
glowing lumps of white asbestos licked by thin 
blue flames. 

“God bless my soul, no more would I!” cried 
the crammer heartily. “I aimed low on purpose 
not to do more than wing them; there’s my bullet 
in the door to say so, whereas theirs fairly whistled 
past my head on its way through that upstairs 
window. They’re a most desperate gang of sports- 
men, I assure you.” 

“There’s certainly something to be said for 
keeping a revolver,” observed Uvo, eyeing the 
brace now lying on the cast-iron chimneypiece. 

“Do you mean to say you haven’t got one?” 
cried Colonel Cheffins. 

“I do. I wouldn’t keep one even out in Egypt. 
I hate the beastly things,” said Uvo Delavoye. 

“But why?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s something so un- 
canny about them. They lie so snug in your 
pocket, and you needn’t even take them out to 
send yourself to Kingdom Come!” 

1 77 


Witching Hill 

“Why yourself, Mr. Delavoye?” 

“You never know. You might go mad with 
the beastly thing about you.” 

“God bless my soul!” cried the colonel, with 
cocked eyebrows. “You might go mad while 
you’re shaving, and cut yourself too deep, for 
that matter!” 

“Or when you’re waiting for a train, or looking 
out of a window!” I put in, to laugh Uvo out of 
the morbid vein which I understood in him but 
others might easily misconstrue. I could see the 
two young pupils exchanging glances as I spoke. 

“No,” he replied, laughing in his turn, to my 
relief; “none of those ways would come as easy, 
and they’d all hurt more. However, to be quite 
serious, I must own it isn’t the time or place for 
these little prejudices against the only cure for the 
present epidemic. And yet for my part I’d al- 
ways rather trust to one of my Soudanese weap- 
ons, with which you couldn’t have an accident if 
you tried.” 

Over the way, his own rooms were freely hung 
with murderous trophies acquired in the back- 
blocks of the Nile; but I felt more and more that 
Uvo Delavoye was wilfully misrepresenting him- 
self to these three strangers; and the best I could 
178 


Under Arms 

hope was that a certain dash of sardonic gaiety 
might lead them to suppose that it was all his 
chafF. 

“Well,” said the colonel, “if those are your 
views I only hope you haven’t many valuables in 
the house.” 

“On the contrary, colonel, everything we’ve got 
over there is a few sizes too big for its place, and 
our plate-chest simply wouldn’t go into the strong- 
room of the local bank. So where do you think 
we keep it?” 

“I’ve no idea.” 

“In the bathroom!” cried Uvo Delavoye, with 
the shock of laughter which was the refreshing fin- 
ish of some of his moodiest fits. But you had to 
know him to appreciate his subtle shades, espe- 
cially to separate the tangled threads of grim fun 
and gay earnest, and I feared that the gallant little 
veteran was beginning to regard him as a harmless 
lunatic. A shake of his bald head was all his com- 
ment on the statement that moved Delavoye him- 
self to sudden mirth. And on the whole I was 
thankful when the return of a man-servant with 
a nervous constable, grabbed out of the fog by a 
lucky dip, provided us with an excuse for groping 
our way across the road. 

179 


Witching Hill 

“ What on earth made you talk all that rot about 
revolvers ?” I grumbled as we struck his gate. 

“It wasn’t rot. I meant every word of it.” 

“The more shame for you, if you did; but you 
know very well you don’t.” 

“My dear Gilly, I wouldn’t live with one of 
those nasty little weapons for worlds. I — I 
couldn’t, Gilly — not long!” 

He had me quite tightly by the hand. 

“I’m coming in with you,” I said. “You’re not 
fit to be alone.” 

“Oh, yes, I am!” he laughed. “I haven’t got 
one of those things yet, and I shall never get one. 
I’d rather thieves broke in and stole every ounce 
of silver in the place.” 

So we parted for what was left of the night, in- 
stead of turning it into day as we often did with 
less excuse; and for once my powers of sleep de- 
serted me. But it was not the attempted bur- 
glary, or any one of its sensational features, that 
kept me awake; it was the lamentable conversa- 
tion of Uvo Delavoye on the subject of firearms, 
and that no longer as affecting other minds, but 
as revealing his own. I had often heard him in- 
dulge his morbid fancies, but never so gratui- 
tously or before strangers. To me he could and 
180 


Under Arms 

would say anything, but of late he had been less 
free with me and I more anxious about him. He 
had now been over eighteen months on the shelf. 
That was his whole trouble. It was not that he 
was ever seriously ill, but that he was always well 
enough to worry because he was no better or fitter 
for work. His mind raced like an engine, and the 
futile wear and tear was beginning to tell on the 
whole machinery. To be sure, he had written a 
little in a desultory way, but I never thought his 
heart was in his pen, and his fastidious taste was a 
deterrent rather than a spur. Yet he railed about 
the bread of idleness, said a man should be fit or 
dead, and that his mother and sister would be bet- 
ter off without him. Those ladies were again from 
home, and the fact did not make it easier to dis- 
sociate such sayings from an unhealthy horror of 
loaded revolvers. 

So you may think what I felt the very next 
evening — which I did insist on spending at No. 
7 — when the distasteful conversation was renewed 
and developed to the point of outrage. Daylight 
and less fog had failed to reveal any trace what- 
ever of the thieves, and it became evident that the 
colonel’s moral victory (he had lost a few spoons) 
was also a regrettably bloodless one. I saw no 
181 


Witching Hill 

more of him during a day of vain excitement, but 
at night his card was brought up to Uvo’s room, 
and the old fellow followed like a new pin. 

I was in those days none too nice about my 
clothes, and both of us young fellows were more 
or less as we had been all day; but the sight of 
the dapper coach in his well-cut dinner jacket, with 
shirt-front shining like his venerable pate, and 
studded with a couple of good pearls, might well 
have put us to the blush. Under his arm he car- 
ried a big cigar-box, and this he presented to Dela- 
voye with a courtly sparkle. 

“You rushed to our aid last night, Mr. Dela- 
voye, and we nearly shot you for your pains!” 
said the colonel. “Pray accept a souvenir which 
in your hands, I hope, and in similar circum- 
stances, is less likely to end in so much smoke.” 

Uvo lifted the lid and the gaslight flashed from 
the plated parts of a six-chambered revolver with 
a six-inch barrel. It was one of the deadly brace 
that we had seen on the colonel’s chimneypiece in 
the middle of the night. 

“I can’t take it from you,” said Delavoye, 
shrinking palpably from the pistol. “I really am 
most grateful to you, Colonel Cheflins, but I’ve 
done nothing to deserve such a handsome gift.” 

182 


Under Arms 

“I beg to differ,” said the colonel, “and I shall 
be sorely hurt if you refuse it. You never know 
when your turn may come; after your own ac- 
count of that plate-chest, I shan’t lie easy in my 
bed until I feel you are properly prepared against 
the worst.” 

“But my poor mother would rather lose every 
salt-cellar, Colonel Cheffins, than have a man shot 
dead on her stairs.” 

“I shouldn’t dream of shooting him dead,” re- 
plied the colonel. “I shouldn’t even go as far as 
I went last night, if I could help it. But with 
that barrel glittering in your hand, Mr. Delavoye, 
I fancy you’d find it easier to keep up a conversa- 
tion with some intrusive connoisseur.” 

“Is it loaded?” I asked as Uvo took the weapon 
gingerly from its box. 

“Not at the moment, and I fear these few car- 
tridges are all I can spare. I only keep enough 
myself for an emergency. I need hardly warn 
you, by the way, against pistol practice in these 
little gardens? It would be most unsafe with a 
revolver of this calibre. Why, God bless my soul, 
you might bring down some unfortunate person in 
the next parish!” 

I entirely agreed, but Delavoye was not attend- 
183 


Witching Hill 

ing. He was playing with the colonel’s offering as 
a child plays with fire, with the same intent face 
and meddlesome maladroitness. It was a mercy 
it was not loaded. I saw him wince as the ham- 
mer snapped unexpectedly; then he kept on snap- 
ping it, as though the sensation fascinated ear or 
finger; and just as I found myself enduring an 
intolerable suspense, Uvo ended it with a reckless 
light in his sunken eyes. 

“I’m a lost man, Gilly!” said he, with a grim 
twinkle for my benefit. “I was afraid I should 
be if I once felt it in my paw. It’s extraordinarily 
kind of you, Colonel Cheffins, and you must for- 
give me if I seem to have been looking your gift 
in the barrel. But the fact is I have always been 
rather chary of these pretty things, and I must 
thank you for the chance of overcoming the weak- 
ness.” 

His tone was sincere enough. So was the grave 
face turned upon Colonel Cheffins. But its very 
gravity angered and alarmed me, and I was de- 
termined to have his decision in more explicit 
terms. 

“Then the pistol’s yours, is it, Uvo?” I asked, 
with the most disingenuous grin that I could 
muster. 


184 


Under Arms 

“Till death us do part!” he answered. And his 
laugh jarred every fibre in my body. 

I never knew how seriously to take him; that 
was the worst of his elusive humour, or it may be 
of my own deficiency in any such quality. I con- 
fess I like a man to laugh at his own jokes, and to 
look as though he meant the things he does mean. 
Uvo Delavoye would do either — or neither — as the 
whim took him, and I used sometimes to think he 
cultivated a wilful subtlety for my special bewil- 
derment. Thus in this instance he was quite ca- 
pable of assuming an alarming pose to pay me out 
for any undue anxiety I might betray on his be- 
half; therefore I had to admire the revolver in my 
turn, and even to acclaim it as a timely acquisition. 
But either Uvo was not deceived, or else I was 
right as to his morbid feeling about the weapon. 
He seemed unable to lay it down. Sometimes he 
did so with apparent resolution, only to pick it 
up again and sit twisting the empty chambers 
round and round, till they ticked like the speed- 
ometer of a coasting bicycle. Once he slipped in 
one of the cartridges. The colonel looked at me, 
and I perched myself on the desk at Uvo’s side. 
But the worst thing of all was the way his hand 
trembled as he promptly picked that cartridge out 
again. 


Witching Hill 

We had said not a word, but Uvo rattled on 
with glib vivacity and the laugh that got upon my 
nerves. His new possession was his only theme. 
He could no more drop the subject than the thing 
itself. It was the revolver, the whole revolver, 
and nothing but the revolver for Uvo Delavoye 
that night. He was childishly obsessed with its 
unpleasant possibilities, but he treated them with 
a grim levity not unredeemed by wit. His blood- 
thirsty prattle grew into a quaint and horrible ha- 
rangue eked out with quotations that stuck like 
burs. More than once I looked to Colonel Chef- 
fins for a disapproval which would come with more 
weight from him than me; but decanter and sy- 
phon had been brought up soon after his arrival, 
and he only sipped his whiskey with an amused air 
that made me wonder which of us was going daft. 

“Talk about bare bodkins, otherwise hollow- 
ground razors !” cried Uvo, emptying his glass. 
“I couldn’t do the trick with cold steel if I tried; 
but with a revolver you’ve only got to press the 
trigger and it does the rest. Then — I wonder if 
you even live to hear the row? — then, Gilly, it’s 
a case of that ‘big blue mark in his forehead and 
the back blown out of his head!’” 

“That wasn’t a revolver,” said I, for he had 
taught me to worship his modern god of letters; 

1 86 


Under Arms 

“that was the Snider that ‘squibbed in the jun- 
gle.’” 

Delavoye looked it up in his paper-covered copy. 
^ Quite right, Gilly!” said he. “But what price 
this from the very next piece — ? 

“‘So long as those unloaded guns 
We keep beside the bed, 

Blow off, by obvious accident. 

The lucky owner’s head.’ 

“That’s a bit more like it than the big blue 
mark, eh ? And my gifted author is the boy who 
can handle these little dears better than anybody 
else in the class; he don’t only use ’em for moral 
suasion under arms, but he makes you smell the 
blood and hear the thunder!” 

Colonel Cheffins seemed to have had enough at 
last; he rose to go with rather a perfunctory 
laugh, and I jumped up to see him out on the 
plea of something I had to say about his damaged 
door and window. 

“For God’s sake, sir, get your revolver back 
from him!” was what I whispered down below. 
“He’s not himself. He hasn’t been his own man 
for over a year. Get it back from him before he 
takes a turn for the worse and — and ” 

“I know what you mean,” said the colonel, 

187 


Witching Hill 

“but I don’t believe it’s as bad as you think. I’ll 
see what I can do. I might say I’ve smashed the 
other, but I mustn’t say it too soon or he’ll smell 
a rat. I must leave him to you meanwhile, Mr. 
Gillon, but I honestly believe it’s all talk.” 

And so did I as the dapper little coach smiled 
cheerily under the hall lamp, and I shut the door 
on him and ran up to Uvo’s room two steps at a 
time. But on the threshold I fell back, for an in- 
stant, as though that accursed revolver covered 
me; for he was seated at his desk, his back to the 
room, his thumb on the trigger — and the muzzle 
in his right ear. 

I crept upon him and struck it upward with a 
blow that sent the weapon flying from his grasp. 
It had not exploded; it was in my pocket before 
he could turn upon me with a startled oath. 

“What are you playing at, my good fellow?” 
cried he. 

“What are you?" 

And my teeth chattered with the demand. 

“What do you suppose? You didn’t think I’d 
gone and loaded it, did you? I was simply seeing 
— if you want to know — whether one would use 
one’s forefinger or one’s thumb. I’ve quite de- 
cided on the thumb.” 


1 88 


Under Arms 

“Uvo,” I said, pouring out more whiskey than I 
intended, “this is more than I can stick even from 
you, old fellow! You’ve gone on and on about 
this infernal shooter till I never want to see one 
in my life again. If you meant to blow out your 
brains this very night, you couldn’t have said more 
than you have done. What rhyme or reason is 
there in such crazy talk?” 

“I didn’t say it was either poetry or logic,” he 
answered, filling his pipe. “But it’s a devilish 
fascinating idea.” 

“The idea of wanton suicide? You call that 
fascinating?” 

“Not as an end. It’s a poor enough end. I 
was thinking of the means — the cold trigger against 
your finger — the cold muzzle in your ear — the one 
frightful bang and then the Great What Next!” 

“The Great What Next for you,” I said, as his 
eyes came dancing through a cloud of birdseye, 
“is Cane Hill or Colney Hatch, if you don’t take 
care.” 

“I prefer the Village mortuary, if you don’t 
mind, Gilly.” 

“Either would be so nice for your mother and 
sister!” 

“And I’m such a help to them as I am, aren’t I? 

189 


Witching Hill 

Think of the bread I win and all the dollars I’m 
raking in!” 

“It would be murder as well as suicide,” I went 
on. “It would finish off one of them, if not both.” 

He smoked in silence with a fatuous, drunken 
smile, though he was as sober as a man could be. 
That made it worse. And it was worst of all when 
the smile faded from the face to gather in the eyes, 
in a liquid look of unfathomable cynicism, new to 
me in Uvo Delavoye, and yet mysteriously familiar 
and repellent. 

“Yes; they’re certainly a drawback, Gillon, but 
I don’t know that they’ve a right to be anything 
more. We don’t ask to be put into this world; 
surely we can put ourselves out if it amuses us.” 

“‘If it amuses us!’” 

“But that’s the whole point!” he cried, puffing 
and twinkling as before. “How many people out 
themselves for no earthly reason that anybody else 
can see, and have their memory insulted by the 
usual idiotic verdict? They’re no more tempora- 
rily insane than I am. It’s their curiosity that gets 
the better of them. They want to go at their best, 
with all their wits about them, as you or I might 
want to go to Court. If they could take a return 
ticket, they would; they don’t really want to go 
190 


Under Arms 

for good any more than I do. They’re doing some- 
thing they don’t really want to do, yet can’t help 
doing, as half of us are, half our time.” 

“They’re weak fools,” I blustered. “They’re 
destructive children who’ve never grown up, and 
they ought to be taken care of till they do.” 

He smiled through his smoke with sinister se- 
renity. 

“But we all are children, my dear Gilly, and on 
the best authority most of us are fools. As for 
the destructive faculty, it’s part of human nature 
and three parts of modern policy; but our poli- 
ticians haven’t the child’s excuse of wanting to 
know how things are made — which I see at the 
back of half the brains that get blown out by ob- 
vious accident.” 

“Good-night, Uvo,” I said, just grasping him 
by the arm. “I know you’re only pulling my leg, 
but I’ve heard about enough for one night.” 

“Another insulting verdict!” he laughed. “Well, 
so long, if you really mean it; but do you 
mind giving me my Webley and Scott before you 
go?” 

“Your what?” 

“My present from over the way. It’s one of 
Webley and Scott’s best efforts, you know. I had 
191 


Witching Hill 

one like it, only the smaller size, when I was out 
in Egypt.” 

I thought he had forgotten about the concrete 
weapon, or rather that he did not know I had 
picked it up, but expected to find it in the corner 
where it had fallen when I knocked it out of his 
hand. My own hand closed upon it in my side 
pocket, as I turned to face Uvo Delavoye, who 
had somehow slipped between me and the door. 

“So it’s not your first revolver?” I temporised. 

“No; you’ve got to have one out there.” 

“ But you didn’t think it worth bringing home ? ” 

I was trying to recall his very first remarks about 
revolvers, after the burglary the night before. 
And Delavoye read the attempt with his startling 
insight, and helped me out with impulsive can- 
dour. 

“You’re quite right! I did say I hated the 
beastly things, but it was a weakness I always 
meant to get over, and now I have. Do you mind 
giving me my Webley?” 

“What did you do with the other one, Uvo?” 

“Pitched it into the Nile, since you’re so beastly 
inquisitive. But I was full of fever at the time, 
and broken-hearted at cracking up. It’s quite dif- 
ferent now.” 


192 


Under Arms 


“Is it?” 

“Of course it is. I’m not going to do anything 
rotten. I was only ragging you. Don’t be a silly 
ass, Gillon!” 

He was holding out his hand. His face had 
darkened, but his eyes blazed. 

“Pm sorry, Uvo ” 

“Pll make you sorrier!” he hissed. 

“I can’t help it. You couldn’t trust yourself 
in your fever. It’s your own fault if I can’t trust 
you now.” 

He glared at me like a caged tiger, and now I 
knew the wild sly look in his eyes. It was the 
look of the Kneller portrait at Hampton Court, 
but there was no time to think twice about that, 
with the tiger in him gnashing its teeth in very 
impotence. 

“Oh, very well! You don’t get out of this, with 
my property, if I can help it! I know I’m no 
match for you in brute strength, but you lay a 
finger on me if you dare!” 

He was almost foaming at the mouth, and the 
trouble was that I could understand his frenzy 
perfectly. I would not have stood my own be- 
haviour from any man, and yet I could not have 
behaved differently if I had tried, for his insensate 
fury was all of a piece with his delirious talk. I 
193 


Witching Hill 

kept my eye on him as on a wild beast, and I saw 
his roving round the uncouth weapons on the wall. 
He was edging nearer to them; his hand was raised 
to pluck one down, his worn face bloated and dis- 
torted with his passion. Neither of us spoke; we 
were past the stage; but in the grate the gas fire 
burnt with a low reproving roar. And then all at 
once I saw Uvo turn his head as though his sensi- 
tive ear had caught some other sound; his raised 
hand swept down upon the handle of the door; 
and as he softly opened it, the other hand was 
raised in token of silence, and for one splendid 
second I looked into a face no longer possessed by 
the devil, but radiant with the keenest joy. 

Then I was at his elbow, and our ears bent to- 
gether at the open door. Gas was burning on the 
landing as well as in the hall below; everything 
seemed normal to every sense. I was obliged to 
breathe before another sound came from any quar- 
ter but that noisy stove in the room behind us. 
And then it was more a vibration of the floor, be- 
hind the curtains of the half-landing, than an ac- 
tual sound. But that was enough; back we stole 
into Uvo’s room. 

“They’ve come,” he whispered, simply. 
“They’re in the bathroom — now!” 

“I heard.” 


194 


Under Arms 

“We’ll go for them!” 

“Of course.” 

He reached down the very weapon he had meant 
for my skull a minute before. It was a great club, 
studded with brass-headed nails, and also a most 
murderous battle-axe, so that the same whirl might 
fell one foe and cleave another. I had taken it 
from Uvo, and his dancing eyes were thanking me 
as he loaded the revolver I had handed him in 
exchange. 

There were three stairs down to the half-landing, 
but Uvo sat up too late at nights not to know the 
one that creaked. We reached the old maroon 
curtain without a sound; behind it was the house- 
maid’s sink on the right, and straight in front the 
bathroom door with a faint light under it. But 
the light went out before we reached it, and then 
the door would not open, and with that there was 
a smothered hubbub of voices and of feet within. 
It was like the first shot from an ambuscade, but 
it was our ambuscade, and Uvo’s voice rang out 
in triumph. 

“Down with the door or the devils’ll do us 
yet!” 

And they sounded as though they might before 
bolt or hinges gave. As we brought all our weight 
195 


Witching Hill 

to bear, we could hear them huddling out of the 
window, and somebody whispering sharply: “One 
at a time; one at a time!” And at that my com- 
panion relaxed his efforts inexplicably, but I flew 
at the key-hole with flat foot and every ounce of 
my weight behind it; the crash fined off into the 
scream of splintered wood, and I should have en- 
tered head foremost if the man on the other side 
had not stemmed the torrent of torn woodwork. 
Even as it was I went down on all-fours, and was 
only struggling to my feet as his figure showed 
dimly in the open window. Delavoye fired over 
my head at the same instant, but his revolver 
“squibbed” like that far-away Snider, and before 
I could hack with his battle-axe at their rope- 
ladder, the last of the thieves was safe and sound 
on terra firma. 

“Don’t do that!” cried Delavoye. “It’s our 
one chance of nabbing ’em.” 

And he was out of the window and swinging 
down the rope-ladder while the ruffians were yet 
in the yard below. But they did not wait to 
punish his foolhardihood; the gate into the back 
garden banged before he reached the ground, and 
he hardly had it open when the last of the buneh 
of ropes slid hot through my hands. 

196 



Even as it was I went down on all-fours 



Under Arms 

“ After them!” he grunted, giving chase to shad- 
owy forms across the soaking grass. His revolver 
squibbed again as he ran. They did not stop to 
return his fire; but across the strawberry bed, at 
the end of the garden, the high split fence rattled 
and rumbled with the weight of the flying gang; 
and there was a dropping crackle of brushwood on 
the other side, as I came up with Delavoye under 
the overhanging branches of the horse-chestnuts. 

“ Going over after them?” I panted, prepared 
to follow where he led. 

“I’m afraid it’s no good now,” he answered, 
peering at his revolver in the darkness. The 
chambers ticked like the reel of a rod. “ Besides, 
there’s one of them cast a shoe or something. I 
trod on it a moment ago.” He stooped and groped 
in the manure of the strawberry bed. “A shoe it 
is, Gilly, by all that’s lucky!” 

“You wouldn’t like to dog them a bit further?” 
I suggested. “The fellow with one shoe won’t 
take much overhauling?” 

“No, Gilly,” said Delavoye, abandoning the 
chase as incontinently as he had started it, but 
with equal decision; “I think it’s about time to 
see what they’ve taken, as well as what they’ve 
left.” 


197 


Witching Hill 

Their rope-ladder was still swaying from the 
bathroom window, and it served our turn again 
since Uvo was without his key. He climbed up 
first, and the window flared into a square of gas- 
light before I gained the sill. The scene within 
was quite instructive. The family chest was 
clamped right round with iron bands, like the 
straps of a portmanteau, and the lock in each band 
had defied the ingenuity of the thieves; so they 
had cut a neat hole in the lid and extracted the 
contents piecemeal. These were not strewn broad- 
cast about the room, but set out with some 
method on a dressing-table as well as in the basin 
and the bath. Apparently the stage of selection 
had been reached when we interrupted the pro- 
ceedings, and the first thing that struck me was 
the amount of fine old plate and silver, candelabra, 
urns, salvers and the like, which had not been re- 
moved; but Delavoye was already up to the right 
arm-pit in the chest, and my congratulations left 
him grim. 

“They’ve got my mother’s jewel-case all right!” 
said he. ‘‘She has one or two things worth all 
those put together; but we shall see th«m again 
unless I’m much mistaken. Come into my room 
and hear the why and wherefore. Ah ! I was for- 
198 


Under Arms 

getting young ambition’s ladder; thanks, Gilly. 
I hope you see how hard it’s hooked to the wood- 
work on this side? It’s only been their emergency 
exit; we shall probably find that they took their 
tickets at the pantry window. Now for a drink in 
my room and a bit of Sherlock Holmes work on 
the lucky slipper!” 

I wish I could describe the change in Uvo Dela- 
voye as he sat at his desk once more, his eager 
face illumined by the reading gas-lamp with the 
smelly rubber tube. Eager was not the word for 
it now, neither was it only the gas that lit it up. 
At its best, for all its bloodless bronze and prema- 
ture furrows, the face of Uvo was itself a lamp, 
that only flickered to burn brighter, or to beam 
more steadily; and now he was at his best in the 
very chair and attitude in which I had seen him 
at his worst not so many minutes before. Was 
this the fellow who had toyed so tremulously with 
a deadly weapon and a deadlier idea? Was it 
Uvo Delavoye who had deliberately debauched his 
mind with the thought of his own blood, until to 
my eyes at least he looked capable of shedding it 
at the morbid prompting of a degenerate impulse? 
I watched him keenly examining the thing in his 
hands, chuckling and gloating over a trophy which 
199 


Witching Hill 

I for one would have taken far more seriously; and 
I could not believe it was he whom I had caught 
with a revolver, loaded or unloaded, screwed into 
his ear. 

It was in a silence due to two divergent lines 
of thought that we both at once became aware 
of a prolonged but muffled tattoo on the door 
below. 

“ Coppers ahoy!” cried Uvo softly. “I thought 
you hauled the rope-ladder up after us?” 

“So I did; but how do you know it’s a copper?” 

“Who else could it be at this time of night? 
Stay where you are, Gilly. Fll go down and see.” 
And in a moment there was a new tune from 
the hall below: “Why, it’s Colonel Cheffins! . . . 
How sporting of you, colonel! ... Yes, come on 
up and I’ll tell you all about it.” 

The colonel’s answers were at first inaudible up 
above; but on the stairs he was explaining that 
he had awakened about an hour ago with a con- 
viction that yet another house had been attacked, 
that in his inability to get to sleep again he had 
ultimately risen, and seeing a light still burning 
across the road, had ventured to come over to in- 
quire whether we were still all right. And with 
that there entered the Jaeger dressing-suit and 
200 


Under Arms 

bedroom slippers, containing a very different col- 
onel from the dapper edition I had seen out on the 
other side of midnight, and for that matter but a 
worn and feeble copy of the one we had both ad- 
mired the night before. 

“That’s Witching Hill all over!” cried Uvo as 
he ushered him in. “You dreamed of what ac- 
tually happened at the very time it was actually 
happening. And yet our friend Gillon can’t see 
that the whole place is haunted and enchanted 
from end to end!” 

“I’m not sure that I should go as far as that,” 
said the colonel, sinking into a chair, while Dela- 
voye mixed a stiff drink for him in his old glass. 
“In fact, now you come to put it that way, I’m 
not so sure that it was a dream at all. I sleep 
with my window open, at the front of the house, 
and I rather thought I heard shots of sorts.” 

“Of such a sort,” laughed Uvo, “that you must 
be a light sleeper if they woke you up. Do you 
mind telling me, colonel, where you used to keep 
those cartridges you were kind enough to give 
me?” 

“In my washstand drawer. I hope there was 
nothing the matter with them?” 

“They wouldn’t go off. That was all.” 

201 


Witching Hill 

“God bless my soul!” cried Colonel Cheffins, 
putting down his glass. 

“The caps were all right, but I am afraid you 
can’t have kept your powder quite dry, colonel. 
I expect you’ve been swilling out that drawer in 
the heat of your ablutions. Devil a bullet would 
leave the barrel, and I tried all three.” 

“But what an infernal disgrace!” cried the 
colonel, shuffling to his slippered feet. “Why, the 
damned things ought to go off if you raised them 
from the bottom of the sea! I’ll let the makers 
have it in next week’s Field , libel or no libel, you 
see if I don’t! But that won’t console either you or 
me, Mr. Delavoye, and I can’t apologise enough. 
I only hope the scoundrels were no more success- 
ful here than they were at my house?” 

“I’m afraid they didn’t go quite so empty 
away.” 

“God bless my soul! Those cartridge makers 
ought to indemnify you. But perhaps they left 
some traces? That was the worst of it in my 
case — neither footmark nor finger-print worth 
anything to anybody!” 

“I’m afraid they left neither here.” 

“But you don’t know that, Mr. Delavoye; you 
can’t know it before morning. The frost broke 
202 


Under Arms 

up with the fog, you must remember, and the 
ground’s as soft as butter. Which way did the 
blackguards run?” 

“Through the garden and over the wall at the 
back into ” 

“Then they must have left their card this time!” 
said Colonel Cheffins, ten years younger in his ex- 
citement, and even more alert and wide-awake than 
we had found him the night before. He did not 
conceal his anxiety to conduct immediate investi- 
gations in the garden. But Uvo persuaded him 
to wait till we had finished our drinks, and we got 
him to sit down at the desk, trembling with keen- 
ness. 

“You see,” said Uvo, leaning forward in the 
arm-chair and opening a drawer in the pedestal 
between them, “one of them did leave something 
in the shape of a card, and here it is.” 

And there lay the cast shoe, in the open drawer, 
under the colonel’s eyes and mine as I looked over 
his shoulder. 

“Why, it’s an evening pump!” he exclaimed. 

“Exactly.” 

“Made by quite a good maker, I should say. 
All in one piece, without a seam, I mean.” 

“I see. I hadn’t noticed that; but then I 
203 


Witching Hill 

haven’t your keen eye, colonel. You really must 
come out into the garden with us.” 

“I shall be delighted, and we might take this 
with us to lit into any tracks ” 

“ Precisely; but there’s just one thing I should 
like you to do first, if you would,” said Uvo def- 
erentially, and I bent still further over the colonel’s 
shiny head. 

“What’s that, Mr. Delavoye?” 

“Just to try on the glass slipper — so to speak, 
Colonel Cheffins — because it’s so extraordinarily 
like the one you were wearing when you were here 
before!” 

There was a moment’s pause in which I saw 
myself quite plainly in the colonel’s head. Then, 
with a grunt and a shrug, he reached out his left 
hand for the shoe, but his right slid inside his 
Jaeger jacket, and that same second my arms were 
round him. I felt and grabbed his revolver as 
soon as he did, and I held the barrel clear of our 
bodies while he emptied all six chambers through 
his garments into the floor. 

Then we bound our fine fellow with his own 
rope-ladder, reloaded both revolvers with unex- 
purgated cartridges discovered upon his person, 
and prepared to hold a grand reception of his 
204 





That same second my arms were round him 





1 


Under Arms 

staff and “pupils.” But those young gentlemen 
had not misconstrued the cannonade. And it was 
some days before the last of the gang was captured. 

They were all tried together at the December 
sessions of the Central Criminal Court, when their 
elaborate methods were very much admired. The 
skilful impersonation of the typical Army coach 
by the head of the gang, and the adequate acting 
of his confederates in the subordinate posts of 
pupils and servants, were features which appealed 
to the public mind. The taking of the house in 
Mulcaster Park, as a base for operations through- 
out a promising neighbourhood, was a measure 
somewhat overshadowed by the brilliant blind of 
representing it as the scene of the first robberies. 
It was generally held, however, that in presenting 
a predestined victim with a revolver and doctored 
cartridges, the master-thief had gone too far, and 
that for that alone he deserved the exemplary sen- 
tence to which he listened like the officer and gen- 
tleman he had never been. So the great actor lives 
the part he plays. 

It is a perquisite of witnesses to hear these pop- 
ular trials with a certain degree of comfort; and so 
it was that I was able to nudge Uvo Delavoye, at 
the last soldierly inclination of that bald bad head, 

205 


Witching Hill 

before it disappeared from a world to which it has 
not yet returned. 

“Well, at any rate,” I whispered, “you can’t 
claim any Witching Hill influence this time.” 

“I wish I couldn’t,” he answered in a still lower 
voice. 

“But you’ve just heard that our bogus colonel 
has been a genuine criminal all his life.” 

“I wasn’t thinking of him,” said Uvo Delavoye. 
“I was thinking of a still worse character, who 
really did the thing I felt so like that night before 
we heard them in the bathroom. Not a word, 
Gilly ! I know you’ve forgiven me. But I’m rather 
sorry for these beggars, for they came to me like 
flowers in May.” 

And as his face darkened with a shame unseen 
all day in that doleful dock, it was some comfort 
to me to feel that it had never been less like its 
debased image at Hampton Court. 


206 


The Locked Room 


I T was no great coincidence that we should have 
been speaking of Edgar Nettleton that night. 
Uvo Delavoye was full of him just then, and I had 
the man on my mind for other reasons. Besides, 
I had to talk to Uvo about something, since he was 
down with a quinsy caught from the perfect sanita- 
tion in advertised vogue on the Estate, and could 
hardly open his own mouth. And perhaps I had 
to talk to somebody about the unpleasant duty 
hanging over me in connection with this fellow 
Nettleton, who had taken his house about the 
same time as Colonel Cheffins and his gang, had 
made up to Delavoye over that affair, and was 
himself almost as undesirable a tenant from my 
point of view. 

“I know he’s a friend of yours, and I haven’t 
come to curse him to your face,” I had been say- 
ing. “But if you would just tell Nettleton, when 
you see him again, that we’re in dead earnest this 
time, you might be doing both him and us a ser- 
vice. I sent him a final demand yesterday; if he 
207 


Witching Hill 

doesn’t pay up within the week, my orders are to 
distrain without further notice. Muskett’s furi- 
ous about the whole thing. He blames me for 
ever having truck with such a fellow in the first 
instance. But when a man has been science beak 
in a public school — and such a school — it sounds 
good enough for Witching Hill,’ doesn’t it? Who 
would have thought he’d had the sack? Public- 
school masters don’t often get it.” 

“They’ve got to do something pretty desperate 
first, I fancy,” whispered Uvo, with a gleam in his 
sunken eyes. He had not denied the fact. I felt 
encouraged to elaborate my grievance against Ed- 
gar Nettleton. 

“Besides, I had his banker’s reference. That 
was all right; yet we had trouble to get our very 
first rent, more trouble over the second, and this 
time there’s going to be a devil of a row. I 
shouldn’t wonder if Nettleton had a bill of sale 
over every stick. I know he’s owing all the trades- 
men. He may be a very clever chap, and all that, 
but I can’t help saying that he strikes me as a bit 
of a wrong ’un, Uvo.” 

Of course I had not started with the intention 
of saying quite so much. But the brunt of the 
unpleasantness was falling on my shoulders; and 
208 


The Locked Room 

the fellow had made friends with my friend, whose 
shoes he was not fit to black. Uvo, moreover, 
was still according me a patient, interested hear- 
ing, as he lay like a bright-eyed log in his bed at 
the top of No. 7. Altogether it was not in my 
allowance of human nature to lose such an op- 
portunity of showing him his new friend in his 
true colours. 

“He is clever/’ whispered Uvo, as though that 
was the bond between them. “He knows some- 
thing about everything, and he’s a wonderful car- 
penter and mechanic. You must really see the 
burglar-trap that he concocted after the scare. If 
another Cheflins paid him a visit, he’d put his 
foot in it with a vengeance.” 

“It would be six of one and very nearly half a 
dozen of the other,” said I with hardihood. “Set 
a Nettleton to catch a Cheffins, as you might say, 
Uvo!” 

But he only smiled, as though he would not have 
hesitated to say it in fun. “Of course you’re only 
joking, Gilly, but I could quite understand it if 
you weren’t. There’s no vice in old Nettleton, 
let alone crime; but there’s a chuckle-headed irre- 
sponsibility that might almost let him in for either 
before he knew it. He never does seem to know 
209 


Witching Hill 

what he’s doing, and I’m sure he never worries 
about anything he’s once done. If he did, he’d 
have gone further afield from the scene of his 
downfall, or else taken rooms in town instead of 
a red elephant of a house that he evidently can’t 
afford. As a tenant, I quite agree that he is hope- 
less.” 

“If only he hadn’t come here!” I grumbled. 
“What on earth can have brought him to Witch- 
ing Hill, of all places?” 

Uvo’s eyes were dancing in the light of the read- 
ing gas-lamp, with the smelly tube, which had 
been connected up with his bedroom bracket. 

“Of course,” he whispered, “you wouldn’t admit 
for a moment that it might be the call of the soil, 
and all there’s in it, Gilly?” 

“No, I wouldn’t; but I’ll tell you one thing,” 
I exclaimed, as it struck me for the first time: “the 
man you describe is not the man to trust with all 
those morbid superstitions of yours! I know he 
enters into them, because you told me he did, and 
I know how much you wanted to find some one 
who would. But so much the worse for you both, 
if he’s the kind you say he is. An idle man, too, 
and apparently alone in the world! I don’t envy 
you if Nettleton really does come under the influ- 


210 


The Locked Room 

ence of your old man of the soil, and plays down 
to him!” 

“My dear Gilly, this is a great concession,” 
whispered Uvo, on his elbow with surprise. 

“I don’t mean it for one,” said I sturdily. “I 
only mean the influence of your own conception 
of your old man and his powers. I disbelieve in 
him and them as much as ever, but I don’t dis- 
believe in your ability to make both exist in some 
weaker mind than your own. And where they do 
catch on, remember, those wild ideas of yours may 
always get the upper hand. It isn’t everybody 
who can think the things you do, Uvo, and never 
look like doing ’em!” 

“I don’t agree with you a bit, Gilly. I never 
believe those blithering blighters who attribute 
their crimes to the bad example of some criminal 
hero of the magazines or of the stage. Villain- 
worship doesn’t carry you to that length unless 
you’re a bit of a villain in the first instance.” 

“But suppose you are?” I argued, almost be- 
fore I saw the point that I was making. “Sup- 
pose you have as few scruples, principles, ‘pangs 
and fears’ — call them what you like — as this fel- 
low Nettleton. Suppose you’re full of fire of sorts, 
but also as irresponsible and chuckle-headed as you 
21 1 


Witching Hill 

yourself say he is. Well, then, I say, it’s taking 
responsibility for two to go pumping your theories 
into as sensitive an engine as all that!” 

Uvo clapped his thin hands softly as there came 
a knock at the door. “Well, he’s a practical man, 
Gilly, I must admit, so let’s leave it at that. Come 
in! What is it, Jane?” 

“The servant from Mr. Nettleton’s, sir, wants 
to see Mr. Gillon,” said the maid. 

I began by explaining why this scarcely comes 
into the category of Witching Hill coincidences. 
Yet it was rather startling at the time, and Uvo 
Delavoye looked as though his evil ancestor had 
materialised at the foot of the bed. 

“All right, Jane! Mr. Gillon will be down di- 
rectly.” 

It was the first time his voice had risen to more 
than a whisper, and it was shaky. The maid 
seemed to catch some echo of an alarm already 
communicated to herself, and faintly sounded in 
her own announcement. 

“Sarah seems very anxious to see you, sir,” she 
ventured, turning to me, and then withdrew in 
some embarrassment. 

I rose to follow. Sarah was almost as great a 
character as her master, and I for one liked her 


212 


The Locked Room 

the better of the two. She was a simple, faithful, 
incompetent old body, who once told me that she 
had known Mr. Nettleton, man and boy, most of 
his life, but without betraying a page of his past. 
She had come with him to Witching Hill Road 
as cook-general. There had been a succession of 
auxiliary servants who had never in any instance 
outstayed their month. The last of them had left 
precipitately, threatening a summons, to the scan- 
dal of the neighbours; but beyond that fact the 
matter had been hushed up, and even I only knew 
that Sarah was now practically single-handed 
through her coming to me about a charwoman. 
I thought I ought to see her at once, but Uvo de- 
tained me with an almost piteous face. 

“Do wait a moment! Of course it’s probably 
nothing at all; but you’ve given me an idea that 
certainly never crossed my mind before. I won’t 
say you’ve put the fear of God on me, Gilly, but 
you have put me in rather a funk about old Net- 
tleton! He is a rum ’un — I must admit it. If he 
should have done anything that could possibly be 
traced to . . . all that . . . I’ll never open my 
mouth about it again.” 

“Oh, bless your life, it’s only more servant 
troubles,” I reassured him. “I shouldn’t wonder 
213 


Witching Hill 

if old Sarah herself finds him more than she can 
stick. They do say he assaulted that last girl, so 
that she could hardly limp into her cab!” 

Uvo rolled his head on the pillow. 

“It wasn’t an assault, Gilly. I know what hap- 
pened to her. But I must know what’s happened 
to old Sarah, or to Nettleton himself. Will you 
promise to come back and tell me?” 

“Certainly.” 

“Then off you go, my dear fellow, and I’ll hang 
on to my soul till you get back. You may have to 
go along with her, if he’s been doing anything 
very mad. Take my key, and tell them down- 
stairs not to lock you out.” 

Sarah was waiting for me on the front-door mat, 
but she refused to make any communication be- 
fore we left the house. She really was what she 
herself would have described as an elderly party, 
though it is doubtful whether even Sarah would 
have considered the epithet appropriate to her 
years. She certainly wore a rather jaunty bonnet 
on her walks abroad. It had a garish plume that 
nodded violently with her funny old head, and 
simply danced with mystery as she signified the 
utter impossibility of speech within reach of other 
ears. 

214 


The Locked Room 

‘Tm very sorry to trouble you, sir, very,” said 
the old lady, as she trotted beside me up Mul- 
caster Park. “But I never did know such a thing 
to ’appen before, and I don’t like it, sir, not at all 
I don’t, I’m sure.” 

“But what has happened, Sarah?” 

As a witness Sarah would not have been a suc- 
cess; she believed in beginning her story very far 
back, in following it into every by-way and blind 
alley of immaterial fact, in reporting every scrap 
of dialogue that she could remember or improvise, 
and in eschewing the oblique oration as an un- 
worthy economy of time and breath. If inter- 
rupted, she would invariably answer a question 
that had not been asked, and on getting up to 
any real point she would shy at it like a fractious 
old steed. It was then impossible to spur her on, 
and we had to retrace much ground at her pleasure. 
The ipsissima verba of this innocent creature are 
therefore frankly unprintable. But toward the 
top of Mulcaster Park I did make out that a num- 
ber of pointless speeches, delivered by Mr. Nettle- 
ton at his lunch, had culminated in the announce- 
ment that he was going to the theatre that night. 

“The theatre!” I cried. “I thought he never 
even went up to town?” 

215 


Witching Hill 

I had gathered that from Delavoye, and Sarah 
confirmed it with much embroidery. I was also 
told his reasons for making such a sudden excep- 
tion, and as given by Sarah they were certainly 
not convincing. 

“Then he’s in the theatre now, or ought to be?” 
I suggested; for it was then just after nine o’clock. 

“Ah, that’s where it is, sir!” said Sarah, weight- 
ily. “He ought to be, as you say, sir. But he’s 
locked his lib’ry, and there’s a light under the door, 
and I can’t get no answer, not though I knock, 
knock, knock, till I’m tired of knocking!” 

I now ascertained that Sarah also had been given 
money to make a night of it, in her case at the 
Parish Hall, where one of the church entertain- 
ments was going on. Sarah made mention of every 
item on the programme, as far as she had heard it 
out. But then it seemed she had become anxious 
about her kitchen fire, which she had been or- 
dered to keep up for elaborate reasons connected 
with the master’s bath. There had been no fire 
in the lib’ry that day; it was late in February, but 
exceptionally mild for the time of year. She knew 
her master sometimes left his lib’ry locked, after 
that what happened the last house-parlour-maid, 
and serve people right for going where they had 
216 


The Locked Room 

no business. She could not say that he had left 
it locked on this occasion; she only knew it was 
so now, and a light under the door, though he had 
gone away in broad daylight. 

This room, in which Nettleton certainly kept his 
books, but also his carpenter’s bench, test-tubes 
and retorts, and a rack of stoppered bottles, was 
the one at the back leading into the garden. It 
was meant for the drawing-room in this particular 
type of house, was of considerable size but only 
divided from the kitchen by a jerry-built wall. 
Sarah could not say that she had heard a sound 
in the lib’ry — though she often did hear master, 
as she was setting there of a evening — since he 
went away without his tea. Of course she had 
not noticed the light under the door till after dark; 
not, in fact, till she came back from her entertain- 
ment. No; she had not thought of going into the 
room to draw the curtains. The less she went in 
there, without orders, the better, Sarah always 
thought. And yet, when she trotted in front of 
me through her kitchen and scullery, and so round 
to the French windows of the sealed chamber, we 
found them closely shuttered, as they must have 
been left early in the afternoon, unless Nettleton 
had returned from his theatre and locked himself in. 
217 


Witching Hill 

It was with rather too vivid a recollection of the 
finding of Abercromby Royle, in a corresponding 
room in Mulcaster Park, that I went on to my 
office for an assortment of keys. 

“Now, Sarah, you stand sentinel at the gate,” 
I said on my return. “If Mr. Nettleton should 
come back while I’m busy, keep him in conversa- 
tion while I slip out through your kitchen. I don’t 
much like my job, Sarah, but neither do I think 
for a moment that there’s anything wrong.” 

Yet there was a really bright layer of light under 
the door in which I now tried key after key, while 
the old body relieved me of her presence in order 
to keep a rather unwilling eye up the road. 

At last a key fitted, turned, and the door was 
open for me to enter if I dared; and never shall I 
forget the scene that presented itself when I did. 

The room was unoccupied. That was one thing. 
Neither the quick nor the dead lay in wait for me 
this time. A mere glance explored every corner; 
the scanty furniture was that of a joiner’s shop 
and a laboratory in one; all the library to be seen 
was a couple of standing bookcases, not nearly full. 
But my eyes were rooted in horror to the floor. 
It also was bare, in the sense that there was no 
carpet, though a rug or two had been roughly 
218 


The Locked Room 

folded and piled on the carpenter’s bench. In 
their place, from skirting-board to skirting-board, 
the floor was ankle-deep in shavings. And among 
the shavings, like so many lighthouses in a yellow 
sea, burnt four of five fat ecclesiastical candles. 
They were not in candlesticks; at first I thought 
that they were mounted merely in their own grease. 
But Nettleton had run no such risk of one toppling 
before its time. Their innocent little flames were 
within an inch or so of the shavings — one was 
nearer still — but before I could probe the simple 
secret of the vile device, there was a rustle at my 
elbow, and there stood Sarah with her nodding 
plume. 

“Well, I never did!” she exclaimed in a scan- 
dalised whisper. “Trying to set fire to the ’ouse 
—oh, fie!” 

The grotesque inadequacy of these comments, 
taken in conjunction with her comparative com- 
posure, made me suspect for one wild moment that 
Sarah herself was an accomplice in the horrible de- 
sign. She grasped it at a glance, much quicker 
than I had done, and it seemed to shock her very 
much less. I snatched up one of the candles — 
they were pinned in place with black-headed toilet 
pins — and I lit the gas with it before stalking 
219 


Witching Hill 

through the shavings and setting a careful foot 
upon the rest in turn. 

When I had extinguished the last of them, I 
turned to find my innocent old suspect snivelling 
on the threshold, and nodding her gay plume more 
emphatically than ever. 

“’Ow awful!” she ejaculated in hushed tones. 
“Madness, I call it. Setting fire to a nice ’ouse 
like this! But there, he’s been getting queer for 
a long time. I’ve often said so — to myself, you 
know, sir — I wouldn’t say it to nobody else. That 
burgular business was the beginning.” 

“Well, Sarah,” I said, “he’s got so queer that 
we must think what’s to be done, and think 
quickly, and do it double-quick! But I shall be 
obliged if you’ll stick to your excellent rule of not 
talking to outsiders. We’ve had scenes enough at 
Witching Hill, without this getting about.” 

“Oh! I shan’t say a word, sir,” said Sarah, sol- 
emnly. “Even pore Mr. Nettleton, he shall never 
know from me how I found him out!” 

I could hardly believe my ears. “Good God, 
woman ! Do you dream of spending another night 
under this maniac’s roof?” 

“Why, of course I do, sir,” cried old Sarah, 
bridling. “Who’s to look after him, if I go away 
220 


The Locked Room 

and leave him, I should like to know? The very 
idea!” 

‘Til see that he’s looked after,” said I, grimly, 
and went and bolted the front door, lest he should 
return before I had decided on my tactics. 

In the few seconds that my back was turned, 
Sarah seemed to have acquired yet another new 
and novel point of view. I found the old heroine 
almost gloating over her master’s dreadful handi- 
work. 

“Well, there, I never did see anything so artful! 
Him at his theatre, to come home and look on at 
the fire, and me at my concert, safe and sound as 
if I was at church! Oh, he’d see to that, sir; he 
wouldn’t ’ve done it if he ’adn’t ’ve arranged to 
put me out of ’arm’s way. That’s Mr. Nettleton, 
every inch. Not that I say it was a right thing to 
do, sir, even with the ’ouse empty as it is. But 
what can you expect when a pore gentleman goes 
out of ’is ’ead ? There’s not many would care what 
’appened to nobody else! But the artfulness of 
’im: in another minute the whole ’ouse might ’ve 
been blazing like a bonfire! Well, there, you do ’ear 
of such things, and now we know ’ow they ’appen.” 

To this extraordinary tune, with many such va- 
riations, I was meanwhile making up my mind. 

221 


Witching Hill 

The first necessity was to place the intrepid old 
fool really out of harm’s way, and the next was to 
save the house if possible, but also and at all costs 
the good name of the Witching Hill Estate. We 
had had one suicide, and it had not been hushed 
up quite as successfully as some of us flattered 
ourselves at the time; one case of gross intemper- 
ance, most scandalous while it lasted, and one gang 
of burglars actually established on the Estate. 
People were beginning to talk about us as it was; 
a case of attempted arson, even if the incendiary 
were proved a criminal lunatic, might be the end 
of us as a flourishing concern. It is true that I 
had no stake in the Company whose servant I 
was; but one does not follow the dullest avoca- 
tion for three years without taking a certain in- 
terest of another kind. At any rate I intended 
the secret of this locked room to remain as much 
a secret as I could keep it, and this gave me an 
immediate leverage over Sarah. Unless she took 
herself off* before her master returned, I assured 
her I would have him sent, not to an asylum, but 
to the felon’s cell which I described as the proper 
place for him. I was not so sure in my own mind 
that I meant him to go to one or the other. But 
this was the bargain that I proposed to Sarah. 


222 


The Locked Room 

It came out that she had friends, in the shape 
of a labouring brother and his wife and family, 
whom I strongly suspected of having migrated on 
purpose to keep in touch with Sarah’s kitchen, no 
further away than the Village. I succeeded in 
packing the old thing off in that direction, after 
making her lock her door at the top of the house. 
Previously I had removed the marks of my boot 
from the extinguished candles, and had left the 
locked room locked once more and in total dark- 
ness. Sarah and I quitted the house together be- 
fore ten o’clock. 

‘Til see that your master doesn’t do himself 
any damage to-night,” were my last words to her. 
“He’ll think the candles have been blown out by 
a draught under the door — which really wouldn’t 
catch them till they burnt quite low — and that 
you are asleep in your bed at the top of the house. 
You’ve left everything as though you were; and 
that alone, as you yourself have pointed out, is 
enough to guarantee his not trying it on again to- 
night. You see, the fire was timed to break out 
before you left your entertainment, as it would 
have done if you’d seen the programme through. 
Tell your people that Mr. Nettleton’s away for 
the night, and you’ve gone and locked yourself 
223 


Witching Hill 

out by mistake. Above all, don’t come back un- 
less you want to give the whole show away; he’d 
know at once that you’d discovered everything, 
and even your life wouldn’t be safe for another 
minute. Unless you promise, Sarah, I’ll just wait 
for him myself — with a policeman!” 

My reasoning was cogent enough for that simple 
mind; on the other hand, the word of such an 
obviously faithful soul was better than the bond 
of most; and altogether it was with considerable 
satisfaction that I heard old Sarah trot off into the 
night, and then myself ran every yard of the way 
back to the Delavoyes’ house. 

Up to this point, as I still think, I had done 
better than many might have in my place. But 
for my promise to Uvo, and the fact that he was 
even then lying waiting for me to redeem it, I 
would not have rushed to a sick man with my 
tale. Yet I must say that I was thankful I had 
no other choice, as matters stood. And I will even 
own that I had formed no definite plans beyond 
the point at which Uvo, having heard all, was to 
give me the benefit of his sound judgment in any 
definite dilemma. 

To my sorrow he took the whole thing in an 
absolutely different way from any that I had an- 
224 


The Locked Room 

ticipated. He took it terribly to heart. I had 
entirely forgotten the gist of our conversation be- 
fore I left him; he had been thinking of nothing 
else. The thing that I had expected to thrill him 
to the marrow, that would have done nothing else 
at any other time, simply harrowed him after what 
it seemed that I had said three-quarters of an hour 
before. Whatever I had said was overlaid in my 
mind, for the moment, by all that I had since seen 
and heard. But Uvo Delavoye might have been 
brooding over every syllable. 

“You said you wouldn’t envy me,” he cried, 
huskily, “if poor old Nettleton fell under the in- 
fluence in his turn. You spoke as if it was my 
influence; it isn’t, but it may be that I’m a sort 
of medium for its transmission! Sole agent, eh, 
Gilly ? My God, that’s an awful thought, but you 
gave it me just now and I sha’n’t get shut of it 
in a hurry! None of these beastly things hap- 
pened before / came here — I, the legitimate son 
of this infernal soil! I’m the lightning-conductor, 
I’m the middleman in every deal!” 

“My dear Uvo, we’ve no time for all that,” I 
said. He had started up in bed, painfully excited 
and distressed, and I began to fear that I might 
have my work cut out to keep him there. “We 
225 


Witching Hill 

agreed to differ about that long ago/’ I reminded 
him. 

“It’s only another way of putting what you said 
just now,” he answered. “You said you did be- 
lieve in my power of infecting another fellow with 
my ideas; you spoke of my responsibility if the 
other fellow put them into practice; and now he’s 
done this hideous thing, had done it even when 
we were talking!” 

“He hasn’t done it yet, and I mean to know the 
reason if he ever does,” said I, perhaps with rather 
more confidence than I really felt. I went on to 
outline my various notions of prevention. Uvo 
found no comfort in any of them. 

“You can’t trust him alone there for the night, 
after this, Gilly! He’ll pull it off, Sarah or no 
Sarah, if you do. And if you send him either to 
prison or an asylum — but you won’t be sending 
him! That’s just it, Gilly. He’ll have been sent 
by me!” 

It was a case of the devil quoting scripture, but 
I was obliged to tell Uvo, as though I had found 
it out for myself, that criminals and criminal luna- 
tics were not made that way. Villain-worshippers 
did not go to such lengths unless they had the 
seeds of madness or of crime already in them. Uvo 
226 


The Locked Room 

could not repudiate his own thesis, but he said that 
if that were so he had watered those seeds in a way 
that made him the worst of the two. There was 
no arguing with him, no taking his part against 
this ruthless self-criticism. He owned that in Net- 
tleton he had found a sympathetic listener at last, 
that he had poured the whole virus of his ideas 
into those willing ears, and now here was the re- 
sult. He threatened to get up and dress, and to 
stagger into the breach with me or instead of me. 
No need to recount our contest on that point. I 
prevailed by undertaking to do any mortal thing 
he liked, as long as he lay where he was with that 
quinsy. 

“Then save the fellow somehow, Gilly, ,, he cried, 
“only don’t you go near Nettleton to-night! He 
obviously isn’t safe; take the other risk instead. 
Since the old soul’s out of the house, let him set 
fire to it if he likes; that’s better than his mur- 
dering you on the spot. Then we must get him 
quietly examined, without letting him know that 
we know anything at all; and if a private atten- 
dant’s all he wants, I swear I’m his man. It’s 
about the least I can do for him, and it would 
give me a job in life at last!” 

I did not smile at my dear old lad. I gave him 
227 


Witching Hill 

the assurance his generosity required, and I meant 
to carry it out, subject to a plan of my own for 
watching Nettleton’s house all night. But all my 
proposals suffered a proverbial fate within ten 
minutes, when I was about to pass the still dark 
house, and was suddenly confronted by Nettleton 
himself, leaning over the gate as though in wait 
for me. 

And here I feel an almost apologetic sense of 
the inadequacy of Nettleton’s personality to the 
part that he was playing that night; for there was 
nothing terrifying about him, nothing sinister or 
grotesque. The outward man was flabbily rest- 
less and ineffective, distinguished from the herd 
by no stronger features than a goatee beard and 
the light, quick, instantaneously responsive eye of 
an uncannily intelligent child. And no more than 
a child did I fear him; man to man, I could have 
twisted his arm out of its socket, or felled him like 
an ox with one blow from mine. So I thought to 
myself, the very moment I stopped to speak to 
him; and perhaps, by so thinking, recognised some 
subtler quality, and confessed a subtle fear. 

“I was looking for my old servant,” said Nettle- 
ton, after a civil greeting. “She’s not come in 
yet.” 


228 


The Locked Room 

“Oh! hasn’t she?” I answered, and I liked the 
ring of my own voice even less than his. 

“Anyhow I can’t make her hear, and the old 
fool’s left her door locked,” said Nettleton. 

“That’s a bad plan,” said I, not to score a silly 
point, but simply because I had to say something 
with conviction. It was a mistake. Nettleton 
peered at me by the light from the nearest lamp- 
post. 

“Have you seen anything of her?” he asked 
suspiciously. 

“Yes!” I answered, in obedience to the same 
necessity of temperament. 

“Well?” he cried. 

“Well, she seemed nervous about something, 
and I believe she has gone to her own people for 
the night.” 

We stood without speaking for nearly a minute. 
A soft step came marching round the asphalt curve, 
throwing a bright beam now upon its indigo sur- 
face, and now over the fussy fronts of the red 
houses, as a child plays with a bit of looking-glass 
in the sun. “Good-night, officer,” said Nettleton 
as the step and the light passed on. And I caught 
myself thinking what an improvement the asphalt 
was in Witching Hill Road, and how we did want 
it in Mulcaster Park. 


229 


Witching Hill 

“We can’t talk out here, and I wish to explain 
about this wretched rent,” said Nettleton. “ Come 
in — or are you nervous too?” 

I gave the gate a push, and he had to lead the 
way. I should not have been so anxious to see a 
real child in front of me. But Nettleton turned 
his back with an absence of hesitation that reas- 
sured me as to his own suspicions; and indeed 
none were to be gleaned from his unthoughtful 
countenance when he had lit up his hall without 
waiting for me to shut the front door. At that I 
did shut it, and accepted his invitation to smoke 
a pipe in his den; for I thought I could see exactly 
how it was. 

Nettleton, having found his candles out and his 
servant flown, having even guessed that I knew 
something and perhaps suspected more, was about 
to show me my mistake by taking me into the 
very room where the conflagration had been laid 
for lighting. Of course I should see no signs of 
it, and would presently depart at peace with a 
tenant whose worst crime was his unpunctuality 
over the rent. Nothing could suit me better. It 
would show that the house really was safe for the 
night, while it would give time for due considera- 
tion, and for any amount of conferences with Uvo 
Delavoye. 


230 


The Locked Room 

So I congratulated myself as I followed Nettle- 
ton into the room that had been locked; of course 
it was unlocked now that he was at home, but it 
was still in perfect darkness as I myself had left 
it. The shavings rustled about our ankles; but 
no doubt he would think there was nothing sus- 
picious about the shavings in themselves. Yet 
there was one difference, perceptible at once and 
in the dark. There was a smell that I thought 
might have been there before, but unnoticed by 
Sarah and me in our excitement. It was a strong 
smell, however, and it reminded me of toy steamers 
and of picnic teas. 

“One moment, and I’ll light the gas. We’re 
getting in each other’s way,” said Nettleton. I 
moved instinctively, in obedience to a light touch 
on the arm, and I heard him fumbling in the dark 
behind me. Then I let out the yell of a lifetime. 
I am not ashamed of it to this day. I had re- 
ceived a lifetime’s dose of agony and amazement. 

My right foot had gone through the floor, gone 
into the jaws of some frightful monster that bit 
it to the bone above the ankle! 

“Why, what’s the matter?” cried Nettleton, but 
not from the part of the room where I had heard 
him fumbling, neither had he yet struck a light. 

231 


Witching Hill 

“You know, you blackguard !” I roared, with a 
few worse words than that. “Til sort you for this, 
you see if I don’t! Strike a light and let me loose 
this instant! It’s taking my foot off, I tell you!” 

“Dear, dear!” he exclaimed, striking a match 
at once. “Why, if you haven’t gone and got into 
my best burglar-trap!” 

He stood regarding me from a safe distance, 
with a sly pale smile, and the wax vesta held on 
high. I dropped my eyes to my tortured leg: a 
couple of boards had opened downward on hinges, 
and I could see the rusty teeth of an ancient man- 
trap embedded in my trousers, and my trousers 
already darkening as though with ink, where the 
pierced cloth pressed into quivering flesh and bone. 

“It’s the very same thing that happened to 
that last maid of mine,” continued Nettleton. “I 
shouldn’t wonder if you’d never seen a trap like 
that before. There aren’t so many of ’em, even 
in museums. I picked this one up in Wardour 
Street; but it was my own idea to set it like that, 
and I went and quite forgot I’d left it ready for 
the night!” 

That was the most obvious lie. He had set the 
thing somehow when he had pretended to be going 
to light the gas. But I did not tell him so. I did 
232 


The Locked Room 

not open my mouth — in speech. I heard him out 
in a dumb horror; for he had stooped, and was 
lighting the candles one by one. 

They were all where they had always been, ex- 
cept one that I must have kicked over on entering. 
Nettleton looked at that candle wistfully, and then 
at me, with a maniacally sly shake of the head; 
for it lay within my reach, but out of his; and it 
lay in a pool, beneath glistening shavings, for the 
whole room was swimming in the stuff that stank. 

The lighting of the candles — in my brain as 
well as on the floor — had one interesting effect. It 
stopped my excruciating pain for several moments. 
We stood looking at each other across the little low 
lights, like Gullivers towering over Liliputian lamp- 
posts; that is, he stood, well out of arm’s-length, 
while I leant with all my weight on one bent knee. 
Suddenly he gleamed and slapped his thigh. 

“Why, I do believe you thought I was going to 
set fire to the house!” he cried. 

“I knew you were.” 

“No — but now?” 

“Yes — now — I see it in your damned face!” 

“Really, Mr. Gillon!” exclaimed Nettleton, with 
a shake of his cracked head. “I hadn’t thought 
of such a thing. But I am in a difficulty. The 
233 


Witching Hill 

gas is on your side of the room, just out of your 
reach. So is the control of the very unpleasant 
arrangement that’s got you by the heel. Is it the 
ankle? Oh! I’m sorry; but it’s no use your look- 
ing round. I only meant the trap-door control; 
the trap itself has to be taken out before you can 
set it again, and it’s a job even with the proper 
lever. After what’s happened and the language 
you’ve been using, Mr. Gillon, I’m afraid I don’t 
care to trust myself within reach of your very 
powerful arms, either to light the gas or to med- 
dle with my little monster.” 

“See here,” I said through the teeth that I had 
set against my pain. “You’re as mad as a hat- 
ter; that’s the only excuse for you ” 

“Thank you!” he snapped in. “Then it won’t 
be the worse for me if I do give you a taste of hell 
before your death and — cremation!” 

“I’m sorry for you,” I went on, partly because 
I did not know that the insane call for more tact 
than the sane, and partly because I was far from 
sure which this man was, but had resolved in any 
case to appeal with all my might to his self-inter- 
est. “I’m sorry for anybody who loses his wits, 
but sorriest for those who get them back again 
and have to pay for what they did when they 
234 


The Locked Room 

weren’t themselves. You go mad and commit a 
murder, but you’re dead sane when they hang 
you! That seems to me about the toughest luck 
a man could have, but it looks very like being 
your own.” 

“Which of these four candles do you back to 
win?” inquired Nettleton, looking at them and not 
at me. “I put my money on the one nearest you, 
and I back this one here for a place.” 

“Two people know all about this, I may tell 
you,” said I with more effect. Nettleton looked 
up. “Uvo Delavoye’s one, and your old Sarah’s 
the other.” 

“That be blowed for a yarn!” he answered, 
after a singularly lucid interval, if he was not 
lucid all the time. “I think I see you walking 
into a trap like this if you knew it was here!” 

“It’s the truth!” I blustered, feeling to my hor- 
ror that the truth had not rung true. 

“All right! Then you deserve all you get for 
coming into another man’s house ” 

“When your servant came for me, and when 
we found out together that you were trying to 
burn it down?” 

I was doing my best to reason with him now, 
but he was my master sane or crazy. His clever- 
235 


Witching Hill 

ness was diabolical. He took the new point out 
of my mouth. “Yes — for going away and stand- 
ing by to see me do it!” he cried. “But that’s 
not the only crow Fve got to pluck with you, 
young fellow, and the other jacks-in-office behind 
you. Must pay your dirty extortionate rent, must 
I? Very last absolutely final application, was it? 
Going to put a man in possession, are you? Very 
nice — very good! You’re in possession yourself, 
my lad, and I wish you joy of your job!” 

He made for the door, hugging the wall with 
unnecessary caution, leaving a bookcase tottering 
as an emblem of his respect. But at the door he 
recovered both his courage and his humour. 

“I always meant to give him a warm reception,” 
he cried — “and by God you’re going to get one!” 

He opened the door — made me a grotesque sa- 
lute — and it was all that I could do to keep a hor- 
rified face till he was gone. Never had I thought 
him mad enough to leave me before he was obliged. 
Yet the front door closed softly in its turn; now I 
was alone in the house, and could have clapped my 
hands with joy. I plunged them into my pockets 
instead, took out the small shot of my possessions, 
and fired them at the candles, even to my watch. 
But my hand had shaken. I was balanced on one 
236 


The Locked Room 

leg and suffering torments from the other. The 
four flames burnt undimmed. Then I stripped to 
the waist, made four bundles of coat and waist- 
coat, shirt, and vest. It was impossible to miss 
with these. As I flung the fourth, darkness de- 
scended like a kiss from heaven — and a loud laugh 
broke through the door. 

Nettleton came creeping in along the wall, lit 
the candles one by one, and said he was indebted 
to me for doing exactly what he thought I would, 
and throwing away my own last means of med- 
dling with his arrangements! 

I went mad myself. I turned for an appreciable 
time into the madder man of the two; the railing 
and the raving were all on my side. They are not 
the least horrible thing that I remember. But I 
got through that stage, thank God ! I like to think 
that one always must if there is time. There was 
time, and to spare, in my case. And there were 
those four calm candles waiting for me to behave 
myself, burning away as though they had never 
been out, one almost down to the shavings now, 
all four in their last half-inch, yet without another 
flicker between them of irresolution or remorse, 
true ecclesiastical candles to the end! 

I had spat at them till my mouth was like an 
237 


Witching Hill 

ash-pit; but there they burnt, corpse candles for 
the living who was worse than dead, mocking me 
with their four charmed flames. But mockery was 
nothing to me now. Nettleton had killed the 
nerve that mockery touches. When I shouted he 
gave me leave to go on till I was black in the face; 
nobody would hear me through the front of the 
house, and perhaps I remembered the heavy shut- 
ters he had made for the French windows at the 
time of the burglar scare? He went round to see 
if he could hear me through them, and he came 
back rubbing his hands. But now I took no more 
notice of his taunts. The last and cruellest was at 
the very flecks of blood on floor and shavings, flung 
far as froth in my demented efforts to tear either 
my foot from the trap or myself limb from limb. 

. . . And I had only sworn at him in my terrible 
preoccupation. 

“No, that’s where you re going, old cock!” he 
had answered. “And by the way, Gillon, when 
you get there I wish you’d ask for your friend 
Delavoye’s old man of the soil; tell him his man- 
tle’s descended on good shoulders, will you? Tell 
him he’s not the only pebble on the shores of 
Styx!” 

That gave me something else to think about to- 
238 


The Locked Room 

ward the end; but I had no longer any doubt about 
the man’s inveterate insanity. His pale eyes had 
rolled and lightened with unstable fires. There 
had been something inconsecutive even in his 
taunts. Consistent only in keeping out of my 
way, he had explained himself once when I was 
trying to picture the wrath to come upon him, in 
the felon’s dock, in the condemned cell, on the 
drop itself. It was only fools who looked forward 
or back, said Edgar Nettleton. 

And I, who have done a little of both all my 
life, like most ordinary mortals, as I look back to 
the hour which I had every reason to recognise as 
my last on earth, the one redeeming memory is 
that of the complete calm which did ultimately 
oust my undignified despair. It may have been 
in answer to the prayers I uttered in the end in- 
stead of curses; that is more than man can say. 
I only know that I was not merely calm at the 
last, but immensely interested in what Nettleton 
would have called the winning candle. It burnt 
down to the last thin disk of grease, shining like 
a worn florin in the jungle of shavings that seemed 
to lean upon the flame and yet did not catch. 
Then the wick fell over, the last quarter-inch of 
it, and I thought that candle had done its worst. 
239 


Witching Hill 

Head and heart almost burst with hope. No! the 
agony was not to be prolonged to the next candle, 
or the next but one. The very end of the first 
wick had done the business in falling over. I had 
forgotten that strong smell and the pools now dry- 
ing on the floor. 

It began in a thin blue spoonful of flame, that 
scooped up the worn grease coin, grew into a sau- 
cerful of violet edged with orange, and in ten or 
twenty seconds had the whole jungle of shavings 
in a blaze. But it was a violet blaze. It was not 
like ordinary fire. It was more like the thin blue 
waves that washed over the rocks of white asbes- 
tos in so many of our tenants’ grates. And like a 
wave it passed over the surface of the floor, with- 
out eating into the wood. 

There were no hangings in the room. The in- 
cendiary had relied entirely on his woodwork, and 
within a minute the floor was a sea of violet flames 
with red crests. There was one island. I had 
stooped after Nettleton left me for the last time, 
and swept the shavings clear of me on all sides, 
garnering as many as possible into the hole in the 
floor where the trap had been set, and drying the 
floor within reach as well as I could with the bare 
hand. There was this island, perhaps the size of 
240 


The Locked Room 

a hearth-rug; and I cannot say that I was ever 
any hotter than I should have been on such a rug 
before a roaring fire. 

But this fire did not roar, though it surged over 
the rest of the floor in its blue billows and its red- 
hot crests, flowing under the carpenter’s bench as 
the sea flows under a pier. And the floor was not 
on fire; the fire was on the floor; and it was dying 
down ! It was dying down before my starting eyes. 
Where the violet wave receded, it left little more 
mark than the waves of the sea leave on the sands. 
It was only the fiery crests that lingered, and 
crackled, and turned black . . . and my senses 
left me before I saw the reason, or more than the 
first blinding ray of hope! 

It was not Uvo Delavoye, and it was not Sarah, 
who was standing over me when I awoke to the 
physical agony on which that of the mind had 
acted lately as a perfect anodyne. It was the 
Delavoyes’ doctor. Uvo had sent for him in the 
middle of the night, telling his poor people he felt 
much worse — having indeed a higher temperature 
— but being in reality only unbearably anxious 
about Nettleton and me. He wanted to know 
what Nettleton was doing. He wanted to be sure 
241 


Witching Hill 

that I was safe in my bed. If his sister had not 
been nursing him, he would have made a third 
madman by crawling out to satisfy himself; as it 
was, he had sent for the doctor and told him all. 
And the doctor had not only come himself, but 
had knocked up his partner on the way, as they 
were both tenants on the Estate. 

They might have been utter strangers to me 
that night, and for a little time after. Nor was 
it in accordance with their orders that I got to 
know things as soon as I did. That was where 
Uvo Delavoye did come in, and with him his 
mother’s new cook, Sarah, in the bonnet with the 
nodding plume — just as she had been to see her 
pore old master. 

“It’s a beautiful mad-’ouse,” said Sarah, with 
a moist twinkle in her funny old eye. “I only 
’ope he won’t want to burn it down!” 

“/ only hope you’re keeping his effort to your- 
selves,” said I. “It’ll do the Estate no good, if 
it gets out, after all the other things that have 
been happening here.” 

“Trust us and the doctors!” said Uvo. “We’re 
all in the same boat, Gilly, and your old Muskett’s 
the only other soul who knows. By the way” — 
his glance had deepened — “both they and Sarah 
242 


The Locked Room 

think it must have been coming on for a long 
time.” 

“I’m quite sure it ’as,” said Sarah, earnestly. 
“I never did ’ear such things as Mr. Nettleton 
used to say to me, or to hisself, it didn’t seem to 
matter who it was. But of course it wasn’t for 
me to go about repeating them.” 

I saw Uvo’s mouth twitching, for some reason, 
and I changed the subject to the miraculous pres- 
ervation of the house in Witching Hill Road. The 
doctors had assured me that the very floor, which 
my own eyes had beheld a sea of blazing spirit, was 
scarcely so much as charred. And Uvo Delavoye 
confirmed the statement. 

“It wasn’t such a deep sea as you thought, Gilly. 
But it was the spirit that saved the show, and 
that’s just where our poor friend overshot the 
mark. Spirit burns itself, not the thing you put 
it on. It’s like the brandy and the Christmas 
pudding. Those shavings would have been far 
more dangerous by themselves, but drenched in 
methylated spirit they burnt like a wick, which 
of course hardly burns at all.” 

“My methylated!” Sarah chimed in. “He 
must have found it when he was looking for me 
all over my kitchens, pore gentleman, and me at 
243 


Witching Hill 

my brother’s all the time! I’d just took a gallon 
from Draytons’ Stores, because you get it ever so 
much cheaper by the gallon, Mr. Hugo. I must 
remember to tell your ma.” 


244 


The Temple of Bacchus 


T HAT spring I did what a great many young 
fellows were doing in those particular days. 
I threw up my work at short notice, and went 
very far afield from Witching Hill. It was a long 
year before I came back, unscathed as to my skin, 
but with its contents ignobly depreciated and re- 
duced, on a visit to 7, Mulcaster Park. 

Uvo Delavoye met me at the station, and we 
fled before the leisurely tide of top-hats and even- 
ing papers, while one of the porters followed with 
my things. There were no changes that I could 
see, except in myself as I caught sight of myself 
in my old office window. The creepers might have 
made a modest stride on the Queen Anne houses; 
brick and tile were perhaps a mellower red; and 
more tenants appeared to be growing better roses 
in their front gardens. But the place had always 
been at its best at the end of May: here was 
a giant’s nosegay of apple-blossom, and there a 
glimpse of a horse-chestnut laden like a Christ- 
mas-tree with its cockades of pure cream. One 
245 


Witching Hill 

felt the flight of time only at such homely spec- 
tacles as ShoolbrecTs van, delivering groceries at 
the house which Edgar Nettleton had tried to 
burn down with me in it. And an empty peram- 
bulator, over the way at Berylstow, confirmed the 
feeling when Delavoye informed me that the little 
caller was a remarkable blend of our old friend 
Guy Berridge and the whilom Miss Hemming. 

Mulcaster Park had moved bodily with the 
times. It had its asphalt paths at last. Inci- 
dentally I missed some blinds which had been 
taken over as tenant’s fixtures in my first or sec- 
ond year. The new ones were not red. The next 
house lower down had also changed hands; a very 
striking woman, in a garden hat, was filling a 
basket with roses from a William Allen Richard- 
son which had turned the painted porch into a 
bower; and instead of answering a simple ques- 
tion, Uvo stopped and called her to the gate. 

“Let me introduce you to Mrs. Ricardo, Gilly,” 
said he, as the lady joined us with a smile that set 
me thinking. “Mrs. Ricardo knows all about you, 
and was looking forward to seeing the conquering 
hero come marching home.” 

It was not one of Uvo’s happiest speeches; but 
Mrs. Ricardo was neither embarrassed nor embar- 
246 


The Temple of Bacchus 

rassing in what she found to say to me. I liked 
her then and there: in any case I should have ad- 
mired her. She was a tall and handsome bru- 
nette, with thick eyebrows and that high yet dusky 
colouring which reminds one in itself of stormlight 
and angry skies. But Mrs. Ricardo seemed the 
most good-natured of women, anxious at once not 
to bore me about my experiences, and yet to let 
us both see that she thoroughly appreciated their 
character. 

“You will always be thankful that you went, 
Mr. Gillon, in spite of enteric, ,, said Mrs. Ricardo. 
“The people to pity were those who couldn’t go, 
but especially the old soldiers who would have 
given anything to have gone.” 

I had just flattered myself that she was about 
to give each of us a rose; she had certainly selected 
an obvious button-hole, and appeared to be seek- 
ing its fellow in the basket, when suddenly I saw 
her looking past us both and up the road. A mid- 
dle-aged man was hobbling toward us in the thin- 
ning stream of homing citizens. He did not look 
one of them; he wore light clothes and a straw 
hat which he did not remove in accosting my com- 
panions; and I thought that he looked both hot 
and cross as he leant hard upon a serviceable stick. 

247 


Witching Hill 

“ Gossiping at the gate, as usual !” he cried, 
with a kind of rasping raillery. “Even Mr. Dela- 
voye won’t thank you for keeping him standing 
on this villainous asphalt till his feet sink in.” 

“That would have been one for you, Gilly, in 
the old days,” said Uvo. “Captain Ricardo — 
Mr. Gillon.” 

Captain Ricardo also seemed to have heard of 
me. He overhauled me with his peevish little 
eyes, and then said two or three of the bitterest 
things about the British forces, regular and irregu- 
lar, that it ever was my lot to hear. I made no 
attempt to reply to them. His wife tried to pre- 
sent him with the rose which I fancied had been 
meant for one of us, and his prompt rejection of 
the offering only hardened me in that impression. 
Then Uvo asked him if he had seen good play at 
the Oval; and so the vitriolic stream was diverted 
into such congenial channels as the decadence of 
modern cricket and the calibre of the other mem- 
bers of the Surrey Club. 

“But won’t you come in?” concluded the cap- 
tain in his most forbidding manner. “I hate this 
talking at the gate like a pack of servants, but 
my wife seems to have a mania for it.” 

It is only fair to state that Mrs. Ricardo had 
248 


The Temple of Bacchus 

withdrawn during the denunciation of the game 
which her husband spent his useless days in watch- 
ing, as Uvo told me when we had declined his in- 
hospitality and were out of earshot. It was all he 
did say about Captain Ricardo, and I said noth- 
ing at all. The people were evidently friends of 
his; at least the wife was, and it was she who had 
set me thinking with her first smile. I was still 
busy wondering whether, or where, I could have 
seen her before. 

“It's quite possible,” said Uvo, when I had 
wondered aloud. “I wouldn’t give her away if it 
weren’t an open secret here. But Witching Hill 
hasn’t called on Mrs. Ricardo since it found out 
that she was once on the stage.” 

"Good Lord!” 

"There’s another reason, to give the neighbours 
their due. Ricardo has insulted most of them to 
their faces. A bit of gossip got about, and in- 
stead of ignoring it he limped out on the war- 
path, cutting half the Estate and damning the 
other half in heaps.” 

"But what was her stage name?” 

Delavoye gave a grim laugh as he ushered 
me into the garden of many memories. "You 
wouldn’t know it, Gilly. You were never a great 
249 


Witching Hill 

play-goer, you see, and Mrs. Ricardo was any- 
thing but a great actress. But she’s a very great 
good sort, as you’ll find out for yourself when 
you know her better.” 

I could quite believe it even then — but I was 
not so sure after a day or two with Uvo. I found 
him leading a lonely life, with Nettleton’s old Sarah 
to look after him. Miss Delavoye had been wooed 
and married while my back was turned, and Mrs. 
Delavoye was on a long visit to the young couple. 
Uvo, however, appeared to be enjoying his soli- 
tude rather than otherwise; his health was better, 
he was plying his pen, things were being taken by 
all kinds of periodicals. And yet I was uneasy 
about him. Among many little changes, but more 
in this house than in most, the subtlest change of 
all was in Uvo Delavoye himself. 

He could not do enough for me; from the few 
survivors of his father’s best bins, to my break- 
fast served in bed by his own hands, nothing was 
good enough for the fraud he made me feel. Yet 
we were not in touch as we had been of old. I 
could have done with fewer deeds of unnecessary 
kindness and more words of unguarded intimacy. 
He did not trust me as he used. He had some- 
thing or somebody on his mind; and I soon made 
250 


The Temple of Bacchus 

up mine that it was Mrs. Ricardo, but not from 
anything else he told me. He never mentioned 
her name again. He did not tell me that, with a 
view to a third road, the Estate had just pur- 
chased a fresh slice of the delightful woodland be- 
hind Mulcaster Park; that in its depths was a 
little old ruin, just after his heart, and that this 
ruin was also a favourite haunt of Mrs. Ricardo’s. 
I was left to make all these discoveries for my- 
self, on a morning when Uvo Delavoye was ex- 
pressly closeted at his desk. 

It was, to be sure, my old Mr. Muskett who told 
me about the new land, and invited me to explore 
it at my pleasure. On a warm morning it seemed 
a better scheme than going alone upon the river, 
as Uvo had suggested. I accordingly turned back 
with Mr. Muskett, who went on to speak of the 
ruin, and in fact set me on my way to it while I 
was setting him to the station. Ten minutes later, 
in a tangle of bush and bracken, I had found it: 
an ancient wall, scaled with patches of mouldy 
stucco, and at one end an Ionic pillar towering 
out of the sea of greenery like a lighthouse clear 
of the cliffs. Obviously, as Mr. Muskett had said, 
the fragments that remained of one of those toy 
temples which were a characteristic conceit of old 
251 


Witching Hill 

Georgian grounds. But it happened to be the first 
that I had seen, and I proceeded to reconnoitre 
the position with some interest. Then it was that 
Mrs. Ricardo was discovered, seated on one of sev- 
eral stumps of similar pillars, on the far side of the 
wall. 

Mrs. Ricardo, without her hat in the shadow of 
the old grey wall, but with her glossy hair and 
glowing colour stamped against it with rich effect: 
a charming picture in its greenwood frame, es- 
pecially as she was looking up to greet me with 
a radiant smile. But I was too taken aback to 
be appreciative for the moment. And then I de- 
cided that the high colouring was a thought too 
high, and a sudden self-consciousness disappoint- 
ing after her excellent composure in the much 
more trying circumstances of our previous meeting. 

“Haven’t you been here before, Mr. Gillon?” 
Mrs. Ricardo seemed surprised, but quite com- 
petent to play the guide. “This mossy heap’s 
supposed to have been the roof, and these stone 
stumps the columns that held it up. There’s just 
that one standing as it was. There should be a 
‘sylvan prospect’ from where I’m sitting; but it 
must have been choked up for years and years.” 

“You do know a lot about it!” I cried, recover- 
252 


The Temple of Bacchus 

ing my admiration for the pretty woman as she re- 
covered her self-possession. And then she smiled 
again, but not quite as I had caught her smiling. 

“ What Mr. Delavoye’s friends don’t know about 
Witching Hill oughtn’t to be worth knowing!” 
said Mrs. Ricardo. “ I mean what he really knows, 
not what he makes up, Mr. Gillon. I hear you 
don’t believe in all that any more than I do. But 
he does seem to have read everything that was 
ever written about the place. He says this was 
certainly the Temple of Bacchus in the good old 
days.” 

“I don’t quite see where Bacchus comes in,” 
said I, thinking that Uvo and Mrs. Ricardo must 
be friends indeed. 

“He’s supposed to have been on this old wall 
behind us, in a fresco or something, by Villikins 
or somebody. You can see where it’s been gouged 
out, and the stucco with it.” 

But I had to say what was in my mind. “Is 
Uvo Delavoye still harping on about his bold bad 
ancestor, Mrs. Ricardo? Does he still call him 
his old man of the soil?” 

To her, at any rate, yes, he did! She did not 
think it was a thing he talked about to everybody. 
But I had hoped it was an extinct folly, since he 
253 


Witching Hill 

had not mentioned it as yet to me. It was almost 
as though Mrs. Ricardo had taken my old place. 
Did she discourage him as I had done? She told 
me it was his latest ambition to lay the ghost. 
And I marvelled at their intimacy and wondered 
what that curmudgeon of a husband had to say 
to it! 

Yet it seemed natural enough that we should 
talk about Uvo Delavoye, as I sat on another of 
the broken columns and lit a cigarette at Mrs. 
Ricardo’s suggestion. Uvo was one of those peo- 
ple who are the first of bonds between their friends, 
a fruitful subject, a most human interest in com- 
mon. So I found myself speaking of him in my 
turn, with all affection and yet some little free- 
dom, to an almost complete stranger who was 
drawing me on more deliberately than I saw. 

“You were great friends, Mr. Gillon, weren’t 
you?” 

“We are , and I hope we always shall be.” 

“It must have been everything for you to have 
such a friend in such a place!” 

“It was so! I stayed on and on because of him. 
He was the life and soul of the Estate to me.” 

Mrs. Ricardo looked as though she could have 
taken the words out of my mouth. “But what 
254 


The Temple of Bacchus 

a spoilt life, and what a strange soul!” said she, 
instead; and I saw there was something in Mrs. 
Ricardo, after all. 

She was looking at me and yet through me, as 
we sat on our broken bits of Ionic columns. She 
had spoken in a dreamy voice, with a wonderful 
softening of her bold, flamboyant beauty; for I 
was not looking through her by any means, but 
staring harder than I had any business, in a fresh 
endeavour to remember where we had met before. 
And for once she had spoken without a certain in- 
tonation, which I had hardly noticed in her speech 
until I missed it now. 

“Of course I’ve heard of all the extraordinary 
adventures you’ve both had here,” resumed Uvo’s 
new friend, as though to emphasise the terms that 
they were on. 

“Not all of them?” I suggested. There were 
one or two affairs that he and I were to have kept 
to ourselves. 

“Why not?” she flashed, suspiciously. 

“Oh! I don’t know.” 

“Which of them is such a secret?” 

She was smiling now, but with obvious effort. 
Why this pressure on a pointless point? And 
where had I seen her before? 

255 


Witching Hill 

“Well, there was our very first adventure, for 
one,” said I. 

“Underground, you mean?” 

“Yes— partly.” 

I could not help staring now. Mrs. Ricardo 
had reddened so inexplicably. 

“There was no need to tell me the other part!” 
she said, scornfully. “I was in it — as you know 
very well!” 

Then I did know. She was the bedizened 
beauty who had raked in the five-pound notes, 
and smashed a magnum of champagne in her ex- 
citement, at the orgy in Sir Christopher Stains- 
by’s billiard-room. 

“I know it now,” I stammered, “but I give you 
my word ” 

“Fiddle!” she interrupted. “You’ve known it 
all the time. I’ve seen it in your face. He gave 
me away to you, and I sha’n’t forgive him!” 

I found myself involved in a heated exposition 
of the facts. I had never recognised her until that 
very minute. But I had kept wondering where 
we had met before. And that was all that she 
could have seen in my face. As for Uvo Dela- 
voye, when I had spoken to him about it, he had 
merely assured me that I must have seen her on 
256 


The Temple of Bacchus 

the stage: so far and no further had he given her 
away. Mrs. Ricardo took some assuring and re- 
assuring on the point. But the truth was in me, 
and in her ultimate pacification she seemed to lose 
sight of the fact that she herself had done what 
she accused Uvo of doing. Evidently the leakage 
of her secret mattered far less to Mrs. Ricardo 
than the horrible thought that Mr. Delavoye had 
let it out. 

Of course I spoke as though there was nothing 
to matter in the least to anybody, and asked after 
Sir Christopher as if the entertainment in his bill- 
iard-room had been one of the most conventional. 
It seemed that he had married again in his old 
age; he had married one of the other ladies of 
those very revels. 

“That’s really why I first thought of coming 
here to live,” explained Mrs. Ricardo, with her 
fine candour. “But there have been all kinds of 
disagreeables.” 

She had known about the tunnel before she had 
heard of it from Uvo; some member of the lively 
household had discovered its existence, and there 
had been high jinks down there on more than one 
occasion. But Lady Stainsby had not been the 
same person since her marriage. I gathered that 
257 


Witching Hill 

she had put her reformed foot down on the under- 
ground orgies, but that Captain Ricardo had done 
his part in the subsequent disagreeables. It fur- 
ther appeared that the blood-stained lace and the 
diamond buckle had also been discovered, and that 
old Sir Christopher had “ behaved just like he 
would, and froze on to both without a word to 
Mr. Delavoye’s grand relations.” 

I suggested that mining rights might have gone 
with the freehold, but Mrs. Ricardo quoted Uvo’s 
opinion as to what still ailed Sir Christopher 
Stainsby. She made it quite clear to me that 
our friend, at any rate, still laboured under his 
old obsession, and that she herself took it more 
seriously than she had professed before one con- 
fidence led to another. 

“But don’t you tell him I told you!” she added 
as though we were ourselves old friends. “The 
less you tell Mr. Delavoye of all we’ve been talk- 
ing about, the better turn you’ll be doing me, Mr. 
Gillon. It was just like him not to give away an- 
cient history even to you, and I don’t think you’re 
the one to tell him how I went and did it myself!” 

I could have wished that she had taken that 
for granted; but at least she felt too finely to bind 
me down to silence. Altogether I found her a fine 
258 


The Temple of Bacchus 

creature, certainly in face and form, and almost 
certainly at heart, if one guessed even charitably 
at her past, and then at her life in a hostile sub- 
urb with a neglectful churl of a husband. 

But to admire the woman for her own sake was 
not to approve of her on all other grounds; and 
during our friendly and almost fascinating chat I 
contracted a fairly definite fear that was not re- 
moved by the manner of its conclusion. Mrs. Ri- 
cardo had looked at a watch pinned to a pretty 
but audacious blouse, and had risen rather hur- 
riedly. But she had looked at her watch just a 
minute too late; as we turned the corner of the 
ruin, there was Delavoye hurrying through the 
brake toward us; and though he was far enough 
off to conceal such confusion as Mrs. Ricardo had 
shown at my appearance on the scene, and to come 
up saying that he had found me at last, I could 
not but remember how he had shut himself up for 
the morning, after advising me to go on the river. 

I was uneasy about them both; but it was im- 
possible to say a word to anybody. He never 
spoke of her; that was another bad sign to my 
suspicious mind. It was entirely from her that I 
had drawn my material for suspicion, or rather 
for anxiety. I did not for a moment suppose that 
259 


Witching Hill 

there was anything more than a possibly injudi- 
cious friendship between them; it was just the 
possibilities that stirred my sluggish imagination; 
and I should not have thought twice about these 
but for Uvo’s marked reserve in speaking of the 
one other person with whom I now knew that he 
was extremely unreserved. If only I had known 
it from him, I should not have deplored the mere 
detail that Mrs. Ricardo was in one way filling 
my own old place in his life. 

My visit drew to an end; on the last night I 
simply had to dine in town with a wounded friend 
from the front. It would have been cruel to get 
out of it, though Uvo almost tempted me by his 
keenness that I should go. I warned him, how- 
ever, that I should come back early. And I was 
even earlier than my word. And Uvo was not in. 

“He’s gone out with his pipe,” said Sarah, look- 
ing gratuitously concerned. “I’m sure I don’t 
know where you’ll find him.” But this sounded 
like an afterthought; and there was a something 
shifty and yet wistful in the old body’s manner 
that inclined me to a little talk with her about 
the master. 

“You don’t think he’s just gone into the wood, 
do you, Sarah?” 


260 


The Temple of Bacchus 

“Well, he do go there a good deal,” said Sarah. 
“Of course he don’t always go that way; but he 
do go there.” 

“Might he have gone into Captain Ricardo’s, 
Sarah?” 

“He might,” said Sarah, with more than dubi- 
ous emphasis. 

“They’re his great friends now, aren’t they?” 
I hazarded. 

“Not Captain Ricardo, sir,” said Sarah. “I’ve 
only seen him in the ’ouse but once, and that was 
when Miss Hamy was married; but we ’ad all 
sorts then.” And Sarah looked as though the 
highways and hedges had been scoured for guests. 

“But do you see much more of Mrs. Ricardo, 
Sarah?” 

“I don’t, sir, but Mr. Hugo do,” said Sarah, 
for once off her loyal guard. “He sees more of 
her than his ma would like.” 

“Come, come, Sarah! She’s a charming lady, 
and quite the belle of the Estate.” 

“That may be, sir, but the Estate ain’t what it 
was,” declared Sarah, with pregnant superiority. 
“There’s some queer people come since I was 
with pore Mr. Nettleton.” 

“What about Mr. Nettleton himself, Sarah?” 

261 


Witching Hill 

“Mr. Nettleton was always a gentleman, sir, 
though he did try to set fire to the ’ouse with 
my methylated.” 

I left the old dame bobbing in the doorway, and 
went to look for Uvo in the wood. I swear I had 
no thought of spying upon him. What could there 
be to spy upon, at half-past nine at night, with 
Captain Ricardo safe and grumbling at his own 
fireside? I had been wasting my last evening at 
a club and in the train, and I did not want to 
miss another minute of Uvo Delavoye’s society. 

It was an exquisite night, the year near its ze- 
nith and the moon only less than full. The wood 
was changed from a beautiful bright picture into 
a beautiful black photograph; twig and leaf, and 
silent birds, stood out like motes in the moon- 
beams. But there were fine intervals of utter dark- 
ness, wide pools and high cascades of pitch, with 
never a bubble in the way of detail. And there 
was one bird to be heard, giving its own glory to 
the glorious night. But I was not long alive to 
the heavenly song, or to the beauty of the moon- 
lit wood. 

I had entered by way of a spare site a little 
higher up than the Delavoyes’, who, unlike some 
of their newer neighbours, had not a garden gate 
262 


The Temple of Bacchus 

into the wood. I had penetrated some score yards 
into the pitch and silver of leafy tree and open 
space when I became aware that some one else had 
entered still higher up, and that our courses were 
converging. I thought for a moment that it might 
be Uvo; but there was something halt yet stealthy 
about the unseen advance, as of a shackled man 
escaping; and I knew who it was before I myself 
stole and dodged to get a sight of him. It was 
Captain Ricardo, creeping clumsily, often pausing 
to lean hard upon his tremendous stick. At first 
I thought he had two sticks; but the other was 
not one; the other was a hunting crop; for I saw 
the lash unloosed in one of the pauses, and a tree- 
trunk flicked again and again, about the height of 
a man’s shoulder, as if for practice. 

When the limping, cringing figure again pro- 
ceeded on its way, the big stick was in the left 
hand, the crop in the right, and I was a second 
sneak following the first, in the direction of the 
Temple of Bacchus. 

I saw him stop and listen before I heard the 
voices. I saw the crop raised high in the moon- 
light, as if in the taking of some silent vow, and 
I lessened the distance between us with impunity, 
fcr he had never once looked round. And now I 
263 


Witching Hill 

too heard the voices; they were on the other side 
of the temple wall; and this side was laved with 
moonlight, so that the edges of the crumbling 
stucco made seams of pitch, and Ricardo’s shadow 
crouched upon the wall for a little age before his 
bent person showed against it. 

Now he was at one end of the wall, peeping 
round, listening, instead of showing himself like a 
man. My blood froze at his miserable tactics. I 
had seen men keep cover under heavy fire with 
less precaution than this wretch showed in spying 
on his guilty wife; yet there was I copying him, 
even as I had dogged him through the wood. 
Now he had wedged himself in the heavy shadow 
between the wall and the one whole pillar at right 
angles to the wall; now he was looking as well as 
listening. And now I was in his old place, now 
I was at his very elbow, eavesdropping myself in 
my watch and ward over the other eavesdropper. 

The big stick leant against the end of the wall, 
just between us, nearer to my hand than his. 
The man himself leant hard against the pillar, 
the crop grasped behind him in both hands, its 
lash dangling like the tail of a monster rat. Those 
two clasped hands were the only part of him in 
the moonlight, and I watched them as I would 
264 


The Temple of Bacchus 

have watched his eyes if we had been face to 
face. They were lean, distorted, twitching, itch- 
ing hands. The lash was wound round one of 
them; there might have been more whip-cord under 
the skin. 

Meanwhile I too was listening perforce to the 
voices on the other side of the wall. I thought 
one came from the stone stump where Mrs. Ri- 
cardo had sat the other day, that she was sitting 
there again. The other voice came from various 
places. And to me the picture of Uvo Delavoye, 
tramping up and down in the moonlight as he 
talked, was as plain as though there had been no 
old wall between us. 

“1 know you have a thin time of it. But so 
has he!” 

That was almost the first thing I heard. It 
made an immediate difference in my feeling toward 
the other eavesdropper. But I still watched his 
hands. 

“Sitting on top of a cricket pavilion,” said the 
other voice, “all day long!” 

“It takes him out of himself. You must see 
that he is eating his heart out, with this war still 
on, and fellows like Gillon bringing it home to him 
every day.” 


265 


Witching Hill 

“I don’t see anything. He doesn’t give me 
much — chance. If it isn’t cricket at the Oval, it’s 
billiards here at the George, night after night until 
I’m sick to death of the whole thing.” 

“Are you sure he’s there now?” 

“Oh, goodness, yes! He made no bones about 
it.” 

I thought Uvo had stopped in his stride to ask 
the question. I knew those hands clutched the 
hunting crop tighter at the answer. I saw the 
knuckles whiten in the moonlight. 

“Because we’re taking a bit of a risk,” resumed 
Uvo, finishing further off than he began. 

“Oh, no, we’re not. Besides, what does it mat- 
ter? I simply had to speak to you — and you 
know what happened the other morning. Morn- 
ings are the worst of all for people seeing you.” 

“But not for what they think of seeing you.” 

“Oh! what do I care what they think?” cried 
the wife of the man beside me. “I’m far past 
that. It’s you men who keep on thinking and 
thinking of what other people are going to 
think!” 

“We sometimes have to think for two,” said 
Uvo — just a little less steadily, to my ear. 

“You don’t see that I’m absolutely desperate, 
266 


The Temple of Bacchus 

mewed up with a man who doesn’t care a rap for 
me!” 

“I should make him care.” 

“That shows all you care!” she retorted, pas- 
sionately. 

And then I felt that he was standing over her; 
there was something in the altered pose of the 
head near mine, something that took my eyes 
from the moonlit hands, and again gave me as 
vivid a picture as though the wall were down. 

“It’s no use going back on all that,” said Uvo, 
and it was harder to hear him now. “ I don’t want 
to say rotten things. You know well enough 
what I feel. If I felt a bit less, it would be differ- 
ent. It’s just because we’ve been the kind of pals 
we have been . . . my dear . . . my dear! . . . 
that we mustn’t go and spoil it now.” 

The low voice trembled, but now hers was lower 
still, and I at least lost most of her answer . . . 
“if you really cared for me ... to take me away 
from a man who never did!” That much I heard, 
and this : “But you’re no better ! Y ou don’t know 
what it is to — care!” 

That brought an outburst, but not from the 
man beside me. He might have been turned into 
part of the Ionic pillar. It was Uvo who talked, 
267 


Witching Hill 

and I for one who listened without another thought 
of the infamy of listening. I was not there to lis- 
ten to anybody, but to keep an eye on Ricardo; 
my further action depended on his; but from the 
first his presence had blunted my own sense of 
our joint dishonour, and now the sense was simply 
dead. I was there with the best motives. I had 
even begun listening with the best motives, as it 
were with a watching brief for the unhappy pair. 
But I forgot both my behaviour and its excuse 
while Uvo Delavoye was delivering his fine soul; 
for fine it was, with one great twist in it that 
came out even now, when I least expected it, and 
to the last conceivable intent. It is the one part 
of all he said that I do not blush to have over- 
heard. 

“Let us help each other; for God’s sake don’t 
let us drag each other down! That’s not quite 
what I mean. I know it sounds rotten. I won- 
der if I dare tell you what I do mean? It’s not 
we who would do the dragging, don’t you see? 
You know who it is, who’s pulling at us both like 
the very devil that he was in life!” 

Uvo laughed shortly, and now his tone was a 
tone I knew too well. “Nobody has stood up to 
him yet,” he went on; “it’s about time somebody 

268 


The Temple of Bacchus 

did. Surely you and I can put up a bit of a fight 
between us? Surely we aren’t such ninepins as 
old Stainsby, Abercromby Royle, Guy Berridge 
and all that lot?” 

In the pause I figured her looking at him, as I 
had so often done when a civil answer was im- 
possible. But Mrs. Ricardo asked another ques- 
tion instead. 

“Is that your notion of laying the ghost?” 

“Yes!” he said earnestly. “There’s something 
not to be explained in all the things that have 
happened since I’ve been here. To be absolutely 
honest, I haven’t always really and truly believed 
in all my own explanations. I’m not sure that 
Gilly himself — that unbelieving dog — didn’t get 
nearer the mark on the night he was nearly burned 
to death. But, if it’s my own ghost, all the more 
reason to lay it; and, if it isn’t, those other poor 
brutes were helpless in their ignorance, but I 
haven’t their excuse!” 

“I believe every word of it,” said the poor soul 
with a sob. “When we came here I thought we 
should be — well, happy enough in our way. But 
we haven’t had a day’s happiness. You, you have 
given me the only happiness I’ve ever had here, 
and now . . .” 

“No; it’s been the other way about,” inter- 
269 


Witching Hill 

rupted Uvo, sadly. “ But that’s all over. I’m going 
to clear out, and you’ll find things far happier when 
I’m gone. It’s I who have been the curse to you 
— to both of you — if not to all the rest. . . .” 

His voice failed him; but there was no mistak- 
ing its fast resolve. Its very tenderness was not 
more unmistakable, to me, than the fixity of a res- 
olution which my whole heart and soul applauded. 
And suddenly I was flattering myself that the man 
by my side shared my intuitive confidence and ap- 
proval. He was no longer a man of stone; he had 
come to life again. Those hands of his were not 
fiercely frozen to the crop, but turning it gently 
round and round. Then they stopped. Then 
they moved with the man’s whole body. He 
was looking the other way, almost in the direc- 
tion by which he and I had approached the tem- 
ple. And as I looked, too, there were footsteps 
in the grass, Mrs. Ricardo passed close by us with 
downcast eyes, and so back into the wood with 
Uvo at arm’s length on the far side. 

Then it was that I found myself mistaken in 
Ricardo. He had not taken his eyes off* the re- 
treating pair. He was crouching to follow them, 
only waiting till they were at a safe distance. I 
also waited — till they disappeared — then I touched 
him on the shoulder. 


270 


The Temple of Bacchus 

He jumped up, gasping. I had my finger be- 
fore my lips. 

“ Can’t you trust them now?” I whispered. 

“ Spying !” he hissed when he could find his 
tongue. 

“What about you, Captain Ricardo?” 

“It was my wife.” 

“Well, it was my friend and you’re his enemy. 
And his enemy was armed to the teeth,” I added, 
handing him the big stick that he had left leaning 
against the wall. 

“That wasn’t for him. This was,” muttered 
Ricardo, lapping the lash round his crop. “I was 
going to horse-whip him within an inch of his life. 
And now that you know all about it, too, I’ve a 
damned good mind to do it still!” 

“There are several reasons why you won’t,” I 
assured him. 

“You’re his bully, are you?” he snarled. 

“I’m whatever you choose to make me, Cap- 
tain Ricardo. Already you’ve consoled me for 
doing a thing I never dreamt of doing in my life 
before.” 

“But, good God! I never dreamt of listening 
either. I was prepared for a very different scene. 
And then — and then I thought perhaps I’d better 
271 


Witching Hill 

not make one after all! I thought it would only- 
make things worse. Things might have been 
worse still, don’t you see?” 

“ Exactly. I think you behaved splendidly, all 
the same.” 

“But if you heard the whole thing ” 

“I couldn’t help myself. I found myself fol- 
lowing you by pure chance. Then I saw what 
you had in your hand.” 

With a common instinct for cover, we had drifted 
round to the other side of the wall. And neither 
of us had raised his voice. But Ricardo never 
had his eyes off me, as we played our tiny scene 
among the broken columns, where Uvo and Mrs. 
Ricardo had just played theirs. 

“Well, are you going to hold your tongue?” he 
asked me. 

“If you hold yours,” I answered. 

“I mean — even as between you two!” 

“That’s just what I mean, Ricardo. If neither 
of us know what’s happened, nothing else need 
happen. ‘Least said,’ you know.” 

“Nothing whatever must be said. I’ll trust you 
never to tell Delavoye, and, if it makes you hap- 
pier, you can trust me to say nothing to — to 
anybody. It’s my only chance,” said Ricardo, 
272 


The Temple of Bacchus 

hoarsely. “I’ve not been all I might have been. 
I see it now. But perhaps ... it isn’t . . . too 
late. . . .” 

And suddenly he seized me violently by the 
hand. Then I found myself alone in the shadow 
of the wall which had once borne a fresco by Nol- 
likins, and I stood like a man awakened from a 
dream. In the flattering moonlight, the sham sur- 
vivals of the other century might have been thou- 
sands of years old, their suburban setting some 
sylvan corner of the Roman campagna. . . . 
Then once more I heard the nightingale, and it 
sang me back into contemporary realities. I won- 
dered if it had been singing all the time. I had 
not heard less of it during the hour that Uvo and I 
had spent under this very wood, four summers ago! 

That was on the first night of our life at Witch- 
ing Hill, and this was to be our last. I arranged 
it beautifully when I got in and had tried to ex- 
plain how entirely I had lost my bearings in the 
wood. I told Uvo, and it happened to be true, 
that I had been wondering why on earth he would 
not come up north with me next day. And be- 
fore midnight he had packed. 

Then we sat up together for the last time in 
that back room of his on the first floor, and watched 
273 


Witching Hill 

the moon set in the tree-tops, and silver leaves 
twinkle as the wood sighed in its sleep. One more 
pipe, and the black sky was turning grey. A few 
more pipes, much talk about old times, and the 
wood was a wood once more; its tossing crests 
were tipped with emeralds in the flashing sun; and 
as tree after tree broke into a merry din, we spoke 
of joy-bells taken up by steeple after steeple, and 
Uvo read me eight lines that he had discovered 
somewhere while I was away. 

“Some cry up Gunnersbury, 

For Sion some declare, 

And some say that with Chiswick House 
No villa can compare; 

But ask the beaux of Middlesex, 

Who know the country well, 

If Witching Hill — if Witching Hill — 

Don’t bear away the bell.” 

“I hope you agree, Beau Gillon? ,, said Uvo, 
with the old wilful smile. “ By the way, I haven’t 
mentioned him since you’ve been back, but on a 
last morning like this you may be glad to hear 
that my old ghost of the soil is laid at last. . . . 
The rest is silence, if you don’t mind, old man.” 

The End 


274 


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